The South African Communist Party (SACP) has dismissed the government’s new Growth and Inclusion (GAIn) strategy as: “the Same aGAIN,” claiming it: “reproduces the same old economic framework that the SACP has consistently critiqued since at least 2019 and going back to 1996.”

In a statement issued by the party’s Politburo this week, it said the document represents a: “neo-liberal paradigm that has locked our economy into devastating unemployment and poverty.”

Yesterday, The Common Sense reported exclusively on the new plan. Today, in its lead editorial, The Common Sense has celebrated the plan.

The SACP argues that GAIn: “is not a fundamental break from the neo-liberal paradigm. It is a continuation, if not a reproduction, of the same paradigm.”

It likened the new plan to earlier documents from the National Treasury, such as the 2019 Economic Transformation, Inclusive Growth and Competitiveness paper and the Going for Growth prescriptions from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The party accused the drafters of ignoring working-class realities in favour of investor appeasement. The SACP also said that neither the “Alliance” (referring to the Tripartite Alliance which it is a part of along with the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions) nor the “working class” had been consulted during the drafting of the plan.

Central to the communists’ critique is what they call the GAIn strategy’s embrace of austerity. “The GAIn strategy is based on fiscal consolidation as its cornerstone. In essence, this means austerity,” the statement reads. “Austerity has suffocated our economy, suppressed growth, and deepened unemployment.” The party also condemned the document’s reliance on private investment to drive infrastructure and service reform, calling it: “privatisation by stealth.”

The Politburo warned that liberalisation of key sectors such as energy, transport, ports and water: “will lead to the domination of monopoly capital, foreign interests and profit-maximisation at the expense of public need.”

The party also criticised the South African Reserve Bank’s policy stance. “The GAIn strategy leaves monetary policy untouched,” it said: “maintaining the narrow inflation-targeting framework that ignores employment creation and industrialisation.” In the SACP’s view: “the Reserve Bank must be transformed into a developmental institution that supports maximum sustainable employment.”

In place of GAIn, the SACP called for: “a development-driven alternative anchored in public ownership, democratic control, expansionary fiscal policy, a supportive monetary policy, and progressive taxation.” The statement urged the government to launch what the communists described as: “a second, more radical democratic breakthrough.”

“The time has come,” the Politburo concluded: “to move beyond...(the) neo-liberal paradigm and build a new developmental path led by the working class.”