South African communists are concerned over the loss of two million jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic in the country, a senior South African Communist Party official said on Sunday.
Virtual briefing the media at the end of its two-day central committee meeting, the South African Communist Party (SACP) General-Secretary Blade Nzimande said that the pandemic had made worse the country’s unequal socio-economic conditions.
“As the SACP, we are concerned that Covid-19 has actually exacerbated inequalities in societies across the globe. The pandemic has further exposed and deepened the capitalist crisis of high levels of inequality, unemployment, and poverty in our country.
“The reality is that South Africa is yet to recover the 2.2million jobs lost in the 2nd quarter,” Nzimande said, as he attributed looming retrenchments at state-owned enterprises like South African Airways and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to corruption and alleged state capture.
He added: “Many black professionals have had their careers destroyed or compromised, either through their own collusion in corrupt activities or as victims for their principled stance against corruption.
“This has been the case in many of our state-owned enterprises, including the SABC. Corruption and state capture have caused havoc in destroying careers of many black professionals.
“We are concerned about building the capacity of the state with competent professionals,” Nzimande said.
The SACP boss said his party would make access to digital services one of its key priorities next year to bridge the digital connectivity gap in many communities in the country.
In line with the party’s focus during its centenary of putting people before profits, he said the organisation would push for public control of increases in the broadband spectrum, Nzimande said.
“As the SACP, we would like to see spectrum reserved for community use, including for social purposes such as education and public health.
“The party’s Central Committee has placed emphasis on this development imperative for our centenary programme in 2021.
“We will therefore also include intensification of the campaign for access to WIFI — including its free access, especially in working-class and poor communities,” Nzimande said.
NM/as/APA