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The Central Committee of the SACP held its first Plenary of this year from Friday to Sunday, 4 to 6 April 2025, in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila presented the political report discussed by the Central Committee. The Central Committee also received and discussed the organisational and other reports, as well as additional presentations, contributing to the discussions held and the decisions made on a wide range of issues, including those we outline in this statement.

Today, we mark the 46th year since the killing of Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu, a courageous communist militant and a dedicated combatant of uMkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of both the ANC and SACP. Mahlangu was hanged by the apartheid regime on 6 April 1979, for his unwavering commitment to fight for an end to colonial and apartheid oppression. We honour his memory and reaffirm our commitment to the ideals he dedicated his life to achieve, particularly a transition to people’s democracy and social emancipation in our country under a socialist transition. Our Solomon Mahlangu commemorative events are taking place today in Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality.

This month marks the 32nd year since Chris Hani, then our General Secretary, was assassinated. We remember the enduring legacy of this fearless revolutionary, who fought tirelessly for the liberation of our people and the transition to people’s democracy and socialism. Hani’s life was tragically cut short on 10 April 1993, but his unwavering commitment to socialism continues to guide us today. The Hani family and the SACP have called for an inquest to unearth the full truth behind his assassination, ensuring that justice is finally served. 

To honour Hani’s memory, a wreath-laying ceremony will be held on Monday, 7 April 2025, at 10 AM at the Thomas Titus Nkobi Memorial Park, also known as South Park Cemetery, in Germiston, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality. The main 32nd-year commemoration will take place in Cofimvaba, Chris Hani District in the Eastern Cape on 10 April 2025. We reaffirm our dedication to the principles for which Hani dedicated his life to achieve.

The SACP and the struggle on the electoral front 

The declaration and resolutions of the SACP Fifth Special National Congress held in December 2024, together with the political and organisational reports received and discussed by the Central Committee, covered the implementation of the SACP’s resolution to contest the 2026 local government elections.

In early March 2025, the SACP complied with the IEC’s notice regarding the annual renewal of the Party’s status as a registered political party. The SACP also made a supplementary representation to the IEC, reaffirming its status as a registered political party. In the end, the IEC cleared the SACP and furnished us with correspondence, validating our Party’s registration.

The SACP will go ahead, to contest the 2026 local government elections across the country in line with the declaration and resolutions of the Party’s 15th National Congress held in 2022 and the Fifth Special National Congress. 

SACP structures across the country should now begin work to contest the 2026 local government elections. The Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the SACP will continue to guide the process of implementing the electoral contest, aimed at addressing the crisis of working-class representation that has emerged in our country and openly advancing measures to achieve socialist transformation, development and transition. 

The SACP calls on all its structures across the country to take active part in municipal integrated development planning to ensure that the outcomes do not result in a further increase in the cost of living. Municipalities are expected to make final decisions by the end of May 2025. It is essential that this process be used to reverse the decay of local infrastructure, address the persistent failures in its maintenance and security, and improve the provision of services by municipalities to the people. 

Reconfiguration of the Alliance

All Alliance partners have been united in affirming that ours is a strategic alliance, not a coalition or an electoral alliance. We have all reaffirmed our commitment to the Alliance in line with our shared strategic objectives within the framework of the national democratic revolution. In this regard, we are interdependent while at the same time upholding our respective independence in pursuit of our historical missions beyond our shared strategic objectives. In this regard, it is important to note that, 31 years into our democratic dispensation, the major clauses of the Freedom Charter have not been realised. 

The Freedom Charter is the basic programme of the national democratic revolution – a strategy under which Alliance partners have come together to form the Alliance. Neo-liberal globalisation and the domestication of neo-liberal policies, starting under the apartheid regime, and later institutionalised from 1996 through the adoption of GEAR, have served as one of the key obstacles. To overcome this, the reconfiguration of the Alliance must reassert the revolutionary content of the national democratic revolution to achieve all the goals of the Freedom Charter. 

The Alliance should not be misconstrued as a sentimental entity but should instead be united behind a revolutionary programme and the principles of collective leadership, inclusivity, accountability and consensus-seeking consistent democratic consultation on all strategic objectives that have brought us together, policies and choices to advance the shared objectives. These are the key tenets of its reconfiguration, as outlined in a common document adopted by the Alliance Political Council in 2019.

Conference of the left 

The SACP will strengthen its work to build widest possible worker and progressive trade union unity. 

The Central Committee has adopted a proposal to establish a steering committee and convene the first Conference of the Left in September 2025. This is a practical step to build a popular left front movement in South Africa. 

The national budget 

The Central Committee reaffirmed the SACP’s strong opposition to a Value-Added Tax (VAT) increase. Upon becoming aware of the intention to raise VAT, revealed through media coverage ahead of the aborted budget presentation in February 2025, the SACP issued a statement rejecting the regressive VAT hike in advance, even before the National Treasury could unveil it in Parliament. We outlined our reasons for opposing the VAT increase in at least two public statements – in the interest of the workers and poor, who would be hardest hit should the government intransigently proceed with the VAT hike.

Even if the proposed VAT increase has been reduced, due to public pressure, including that exerted by the SACP, from two per cent to 0.5 per cent in the 2025/2026 and 2026/2027 financial years respectively, any VAT hike will still negatively impact the workers and poor. The SACP calls on the government to honour its commitment to find alternative sources of funding to replace the proposed VAT hike within 30 days.

The Central Committee reaffirmed the SACP’s position against the inclusion of the right-wing, neo-liberal DA in governing the country. The voting patterns on the fiscal framework, notably supporting the call for the government to find alternative sources of funding within 30 days to replace the VAT hike, have made clear the balance of power in favour of the exclusion of the DA, which has arrogantly insisted that there can be no government in our country at this stage without its inclusion. What is now required is decisive implementation of their exclusion.

The alternatives must include considerations such as a more progressive ad valorem tax on luxury products and other progressive considerations.

The SACP reiterates its stance, in defence of the NHI, for its urgent and full implementation towards the provision of quality healthcare for all. The government, especially the Presidency, must not abstain from the court process to defend the NHI. 

In addition, the SACP calls for provincial and academic hospitals to be empowered, including in terms of financial delegation, to deliver quality healthcare. 

South Africa–United States trade relations – AGOA

The SACP calls on our government to urgently review the full implications of the “reciprocal tariffs” imposed by the United States on 2 April 2025. These tariffs effectively remove the trade benefits that South Africa has accessed under the United States’ African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). In light of the tariffs imposed by the United States (US) and in the interest of domestic employment creation to overcome the unemployment crisis and tackle poverty, the SACP calls for the immediate withdrawal of the concessions that South Africa granted the US in exchange for access to AGOA since its inception in 2000.

It is important to recall that the concessions, notably those made in 2015 for US imports of poultry “spare parts”, beef and pork, a point to which we return, were conditional on South Africa continuing to benefit from AGOA duty-free access benefits. The concessions negatively impacted local poultry, beef and pork production. They were, therefore, at the expense of local industries and workers and their families. Maintaining the concessions while the US is effectively removing AGOA’s duty-free trade benefits for South Africa will increasingly hurt domestic production, further postpone industrialisation and accelerate retrenchments.

The US has long been using AGOA as a tool to extract concessions from South Africa. This has included pressure to liberalise and deregulate the affected sectors in order to increase the volume of US exports to South Africa – particularly, though not only, through duty-free access and food health and safety deregulation. This has had an exploitative effect and negative implications for public health. 

To be sure, South Africa is a developing country, unlike the US, yet the US has used AGOA to extract concessions contrary to the very purpose of the World Trade Organisation’s Generalised System of Preferences. AGOA falls under the Generalised System of Preferences, which exists for developed countries to support economic development in developing countries with duty-free or reduced tariff access. 

In contrast, the US has, in its efforts to extract concessions, opposed South Africa’s adoption of localisation and local content requirements in investments. The US has also used patent-related strangulation to either block or frustrate South Africa’s pursuit of domestic pharmaceutical industrial development. This has suppressed the development of generic medicine production in South Africa, thereby contributing to exorbitant healthcare costs, especially impacting the workers and poor negatively. 

In 2015, under AGOA pressure, the US secured a concession to export 65,000 tonnes of chicken “spare parts” to South Africa per annum. This massive volume amounts to 65 million kilograms of US chicken “spare parts” exports to South Africa each year. The poultry imports from the US often comprise high-fat, less nutritious portions, such as chicken legs, compared to the leanest, low-fat and protein-rich breasts. This concession was accompanied by yet another concession – South Africa’s removal of anti-dumping duties against US poultry. 

But not only did the US aggressively challenge South Africa’s justly adopted anti-dumping duties, it also targeted sanitary and phytosanitary measures, branding them as “non-tariff barriers”. In reality, anti-dumping duties are internationally recognised as essential to protect domestic production and workers from unfair, below-cost or artificially low-priced imports. Sanitary and phytosanitary regulations safeguard human, animal and plant health from toxins, contaminants and diseases. 

Prior to the US pressure under AGOA, South Africa had adopted a zero-risk policy for specific salmonella strains – a measure aligned with food health and safety standards. Salmonella causes salmonellosis, a food-borne illness leading to diarrhoea, fever and stomach cramps. Yet the US poultry lobby opposed this as a “non-tariff barrier”, demanding that South Africa relax or abandon the food health and safety protocol.

Similarly, on 1 June 2013, South Africa introduced regulations against Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome also known as “blue ear disease”, a viral and highly contagious pig disease. Instead of standing firm in a zero-risk position, our government, under AGOA pressure by the US, later announced that it would allow certain “low-risk” US pork imports. 

While it is misleading to suggest that AGOA has not benefited the US in its trade with South Africa, this does not mean that South Africa has not also benefited from AGOA. To be sure, South African exports under AGOA’s duty-free benefits have included automotive vehicles, mainly produced by at least two foreign-owned multinational corporations with domestic assembly plants. AGOA’s duty-free benefits have also benefited South African automotive vehicle component exports to the US. 

The challenge that South Africa has faced in the automotive manufacturing sector is to raise the levels of domestic manufacturing value addition, up to at least 60 per cent, as the majority of the value in the vehicles exported is still imported. However, it is important to note that AGOA’s share of South African exports to the US fell from 31 per cent in 2013 to just 21 per cent in 2022, a decline of 10 per cent. Previous US tariff hikes have had their negative impact, as will the recently adopted “reciprocal tariffs”. For instance, since 2018, steel and aluminium tariffs imposed under the Trump administration have harmed South Africa’s steel and aluminium product exports to the US.

That said, there are exports from other sectors that have benefited under AGOA’s duty-free benefits. Included in these exports are critical minerals, which are beneficiated in the US instead of locally to drive domestic industrialisation. The ongoing removal of AGOA’s duty-free benefits for South Africa by the US stands to favour the export of South Africa’s critical minerals as raw materials for beneficiation in the US – while suppressing industrialisation in our country. This paradigm will perpetuate a colonial-type unequal trade relationship, where South Africa will increasingly export low-value raw materials significantly and import high-value finished products from the US. Our government and the working class must decisively resist this colonial-type trade relationship. To this end, the SACP will play its part. 

Our responses should include considerations for export taxes on strategic minerals in favour of local beneficiation and industrialisation of our economy.

While it is important for the government to engage in efforts to maintain AGOA access – but only if its duty-free benefits for South African exports are not undermined by US tariff hikes and demands for concessions – this must not come at the expense of workers and domestic production and the broader industrialisation imperative.

Defending our hard-won national independence, democratic sovereignty and fundamental right to self-determination

The US has weaponised access to AGOA and used other imperialist machinations to pressure South Africa into abandoning sovereign policy positions and critical international relations and co-operation partnerships. This has included pressure on South Africa to cut ties with BRICS partners, particularly China and Russia, as well as with Iran, which has joined the now expanded BRICS Plus community. 

On 2 April 2025, one Mr Jackson of the US House of Representatives introduced a Bill calling for sanctions against South African government leaders, targeting the ANC. This is not new. It is substantively similar to the “democrat” and “republican” bipartisan Bill submitted to the same house on 6 February 2024. The Central Committee strongly condemned the US imperialist machinations. 

As the two imperialist Bills do, the US has attacked South Africa’s principled support of Palestinian freedom and justice. The hostility by US lawmakers and leaders intensified after South Africa brought the apartheid Israeli settler regime to the International Court of Justice on 29 December 2023. Our government took this step – which the SACP called for and unwaveringly supports – to seek accountability for the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, Palestine. Since 7 October 2023, the US-backed apartheid Israeli settler regime has killed over 50,669 Palestinians, injured 115,225 and destroyed houses and water, health, education, roads and other human development and critical economic and social infrastructure. Yet the US continues to support Israeli impunity.

On 21 March 2024, South Africa’s Human Rights Day, the Daily Maverick in its coverage of US imperialist agenda acclaimed that “A bill that would call on the US government to comprehensively review US relations with South Africa crossed its first legislative hurdle on Wednesday when it passed the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on a voice vote”. The Daily Maverick was referring to the “democrat” and “republican” factions of US imperialism’s bipartisan Bill submitted on 6 February 2024. The imperialist hostility by the US towards South Africa has recently been reinforced by Donald Trump following his return to office as the regime’s president.

The SACP reaffirms: 

“We will not surrender our hard-won national independence, democratic sovereignty and fundamental right to self-determination.”

Against gender-based violence

South Africa continues to be gripped by a deep and violent crisis of gender-based violence, with rape rates among the highest in the world. The persistent brutality against women and children is a stain on the conscience of our society and a glaring indictment of our state institutions. The slow pace of investigations, the constant re-traumatisation of survivors, and the gross mishandling of cases by law enforcement agencies reflect a systemic failure that reinforces patriarchal violence rather than uprooting it. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the shameful acquittal of Timothy Omotoso, a man accused by multiple survivors of heinous sexual abuse, in a case where a key whistle-blower has now been shot dead. 

The SACP condemns this failure with the contempt it deserves, and we reaffirm our militant commitment to building a socialist society where the safety, dignity and liberation of women and gender-oppressed people are non-negotiable pillars of revolutionary transformation.

International working-class solidarity

The SACP rejects the ill-considered decision to invite Volodymyr Zelenskyy to South Africa. This move must be reversed without delay. Zelenskyy’s term as President of Ukraine has expired. No new elections have taken place in Ukraine, unlike in Russia, rendering his status illegitimate. He remains a puppet of the US-led imperialist bloc, serving the interests of the NATO political, economic, ideological and war machinery. His invitation has the effect of placing our country on the wrong side of history and the global class struggle.

The SACP stands in militant internationalist solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world:

With the people of Swaziland fighting heroically for democratic change against monarchical dictatorship.

With the working class and poor of Sudan demanding an end to the civil war.

With the people of Western Sahara resisting the colonial occupation by Morocco.

With the people of Syria and the anti-imperialist axis of resistance in the Middle East including Iran and Lebanon, resisting aggression from the apartheid Israeli settler regime and its imperialist patron, the US.

Despite relentless imperialist attacks and economic sabotage, the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has maintained participatory democracy and recently reaffirmed its legitimacy through the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro. We pledge our solidarity with the people of Venezuela against imperialist aggression and machinations.

Further, the SACP reaffirms its unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people, and with the broader resistance forces in Syria, Lebanon and across the region. Zionism is a form of settler colonialism that must be confronted with sustained internationalist resistance.

The SACP will deepen ties with the Communist Party of Vietnam and the People’s Republic of Vietnam, whose continued advances in socialist development remain a beacon of anti-imperialist resistance.

We stand firmly with the Rohingya people of Myanmar who are victims of state-led ethnic cleansing and systemic oppression. Their plight demands revolutionary solidarity and mobilisation to end apartheid-like conditions and forced displacement. Following the recent earthquake in Myanmar, which has caused devastating loss of life and infrastructure, the SACP calls for humanitarian assistance anchored in solidarity, not charity. We urge the international working class to support all efforts aimed at reconstruction under the democratic leadership of the people.

The SACP’s revolutionary solidarity with socialist Cuba remains unshaken. We condemn the ongoing US blockade and reaffirm our support for the Cuban people and their socialist project.

The SACP maintains its consistent stance: peace in Ukraine will never be achieved without addressing NATO’s eastwards expansion and the imperialist provocation it represents. Russia’s position that Ukraine must not become a NATO outpost is a legitimate security concern. Any peace settlement must reflect the need to dismantle imperialist military encirclement.

The trade war launched by US imperialism against the People’s Republic of China is part of a broader attempt to undermine the global shift towards a multipolar world. Hikes in US tariffs aim to contain China’s advancing economic development. In response, China has implemented retaliatory measures, including tariffs and export controls on key minerals, exposing the contradictions of the global capitalist order.

China’s development is rooted in its strategic investments in real production, infrastructure development and global co-operation through initiatives such as the Belt and Road. The US, in contrast, relies on bullying, fictitious capital, financial speculation and unsustainable debt, while its infrastructure crumbles and social inequality widens.

The emergence of BRICS Plus co-operation represents a potential reconfiguration of global power. As the US unipolar dominance fades, the working class internationally must seize the opportunity to deepen co-operation among progressive states, strengthen anti-imperialist alliances and advance the struggle for socialism in the 21st century.

The SACP congratulates Comrade M.A. Baby on his election as General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). We also commend the successful conclusion of the 24th Congress in Madurai and extend our revolutionary greetings to the newly elected 18-member Polit Bureau.

Issued by the South African Communist Party,