ANC YOUTH LEAGUE STATEMENT ON THE NATIONALISATION OF MINES RESEARCH:
In its National Executive Committee meeting, which finished on Sunday the 14th of November 2010, the ANC's resolution on Nationalisation of the Mines reads as follows, "the NEC has resolved to appoint two senior researchers and a project manager to investigate successful models that could be considered on the role of the state in mining. We are engaging the research institutions to provide researchers to the project.
Our Economic Transformation Committee will provide terms of reference for such research and will also give us a reference group to oversee the work on behalf of the NEC. A report on this work will be presented to the NEC in the last quarter of next year in preparation for our policy conference in 2012".
The ANC Youth League welcomes this resolution of the ANC because it is consistent with the ANC National General Council Economic Transformation resolution on Nationalisation of Mines which read as follows, "there was greater consensus in the commission on the nationalisation of mines and other strategic sectors of the economy. The NGC therefore mandated the NEC to ensure further work be done, including research, study tours and discussions, and to report to the Policy Conference for decision at National Conference in 2012".
We re-emphasise this 3rd ANC National General Council resolution because we hold a strong view that the researchers who will be appointed should not re-invent the wheel and ignore the essence of what NGC commission on Economic Transformation established greater consensus on.
The ANC Youth League will support all research on nationalisation of Mines which is not depoliticised and taken out of its original political context and strategic vision of the ANC, the Freedom Charter. Nationalisation of Mines by the ANC led government is neither a technocratic, nor academic exercise, but a political and economic transformation programme expressed in the Freedom Charter, which remains the strategic vision of the ANC led liberation movement.
The research conducted should necessarily be cognisant of the reality that the Freedom Charter remains the strategic vision of the ANC, and be inspired by what the ANC 3rd NGC adopted political report said, that "Sixteen years into our democracy, while we have made substantial progress, we have not yet achieved true economic transformation, which should include fundamentally changing the structure of the economy and the distribution of wealth and income in our society".
These are but some of the political realities which the nationalisation research should consider because a depoliticised research outcome, which ignores the politics of the national democratic revolutionary agenda will not find resonance in the African National Congress. We raise this point because neo-liberal politics and economics were previously smuggled into the ANC through what is called independent research and expertise.
The ANC Youth League will provide all the necessary support to the research team, partake in the ETC reference group, and ensure that all these processes do not falsely interpret the Freedom Charter and as a result wrongly advise the determination of the best model for the role of the State in mining and other sectors of the economy.
Statement issued by Floyd Shivambu, African National Congress Youth League, November 17 2010
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