SACP statement on the National Planning Commission

The SACP welcomes the announcement made by the President of the Republic last week establishing the National Planning Commission.

We are committed to work with the planning commission in a dynamic way to buttress its activities with popular mass participation on what should be the long term plan of our country on key challenges facing South Africa.

We particularly welcome the appointment of South Africans, a most welcome move away from our policy direction being determined by ‘Harvard Panels’ as if South Africa does not have its own intellectual resources. However, we obviously would have liked to see more names of people coming from the ranks of the working class, and we are concerned that people associated with business are over-represented in the commission.

Our concern is that business orientation tends to be narrow and driven by the short-termism of profit maximizing interests, something that could potentially undermine our long-term planning capacity. However, the SACP will engage with the planning commission around what we see as priorities for the long-term development of our country.

In particular, the SACP is of the view that for South Africa to realize its potential and serve the interests of the majority of our people, we need to transform the current semi-colonial economic growth path, and build an inclusive economy capable of realizing decent work, skills development and rural development.

The SACP is looking forward to working with this commission and we will mobilize our communities for their voices to be taken into account by the commissioners, so that the commission is not narrowly expert driven.

Issued by the SACP Contact: Malesela Maleka.