Afternoon Drive withJoanne Joseph

The South African Communist Party's (SACP) Jeremy Cronin says while South Africa has transformed at an institutional level he admits that these are half completed successes.

The deputy secretary general has reiterated concerns recently raised by the Communist Party, over the state of the African National Congress (ANC) and issues of transformation.

Damming statements were made by Secretary General Blade Nzimande on Sunday.

Nzimande said the call for radical transformation by the ANC was largely rhetorical and almost only focused on advancing ‘narrow black elite accumulation’.

Elaborating on some the challenges in achieving economic equality Cronin says while transformation was achieved in rule after 1994 and at a judicial level, this was not used resourcefully.

At that stage established capital [white monopoly capital] was off balance in South Africa, they had lost the protected cover of white monopoly rule.

— Deputy secretary general of the SACP, Jeremy Cronin

Instead of using that to drive quite significant economic transformation, basically we allowed them to do what they were trying to do…. The democratic breakthrough was an opportunity to go the globalising root - to disinvest from South Africa, establish headquarters and listings outside of South Africa.

— Deputy secretary general of the SACP, Jeremy Cronin

We were naïve as the ANC and government at this point, we allowed massive relaxation of financial sector control, dual listings and essentially there was a huge outflow of capital and resources.

— Deputy secretary general of the SACP, Jeremy Cronin

He believes that has been at the heart of many of the problems that we have got at the economic front.

Asked who this black elite is that the SACP has hit out at, Cronin refused to mention names and insists collective responsibility must be taken for the current state of the country.

A lot of the turmoil inside of the ANC and the broader lines is because of this. There is this scramble to occupy positions, not for the good of south Africa and broad black economic social transformation but to get access to tenders.

— Deputy secretary general of the SACP, Jeremy Cronin

I think that we across the board have failed to sufficiently provide the necessary, and to show the world, to drive the necessary transformation that is required…

— Deputy secretary general of the SACP, Jeremy Cronin

I am part of a collective….there are areas where I would certainly wish that president Zuma would give a different kind or better leadership but I don’t want to narrow my finger pointing, we must all assume collective responsibility.

— Deputy secretary general of the SACP, Jeremy Cronin

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