Thursday, September 14, 2017

YCLSA Statement on Class Action Lawsuit Against Financial Institutions
18 August 2017

The Young Communist League of South Africa (uFasimba) unreservedly welcomes the class action (law)suit against major financial institutions, especially the four major banks in the country.

This lawsuit is long over due given the insensitivity through which financial institutions, especially the banks, have been conducting their business. The lawsuit deserves the unconditional support of the property-less, the landless, the homeless, the hopeless and the helpless. In short, it deserves the support of those who are at the receiving end of the capitalist property market system.

Most importantly, we would like to commend the SACP for its uncompromising Financial Sector Campaign which, over the years, has advocated for the reform of the sector and exposed the brazen corruption of the financial sector, and the implication of such on workers and the poor.

This lawsuit comes as a result of such efforts by the SACP and various like-minded stake-holders, lest we be fooled by opportunists who jump into the bandwagon when they merely see the lawsuit on the news.

What has been an era of democracy for the privileged, has actually been an era of evictions for the propertyless and landless people of the country. The garnishee orders churned out by corrupt and profit-minded financial institutions, that always led to unlawful evictions, has been the worst nightmare for many people, especially the working class and the ever-fragile middle-class, in the country.

The financial institutions never stop short of circumventing the laws of the country to feed their insatiable appetite for more profit at the expense of workers and the poor. The YCLSA has been furnished with evidence of houses of unlawfully evicted people been sold at R10 (that is, way below the market value) by corrupt property-dealers/auctioneers, working hand in glove with the ever insensitive and profit-driven banks. Many people are dying in silence in the hands of this insensitive property market-finance capital dynansty which has become a law unto itself.

The YCLSA raises this in the context of the signature campaign of the SACP under the leadership of Cde Chris Hani, the Triple HHH campaign (Housing, Hunger and Health), which placed the question of housing as one of the important aspect of the revolution. We therefore recognize the need as the YCLSA communists to take such a campaign to its logical conclusion. This we will do without any fear or favour.

We call upon every young person in general and members of the YCLSA in particular to make everyone aware of the historic class action (law)suit against the draconian four big banks by the poor. We challenge the courts to be sensitive to the plight of the poor. But most importantly, we must mobilize everyone for mass action that will compel these culprits to own up. They will never concede without mass action, and therefore popular mobilization must be the bedrock of our campaigns.

Lastly, the YCLSA reiterates its call for the establishment of a state bank. This must be one of the utmost tasks of a progressive government. Any further reluctance or delays on this will see many people continuously being preyed upon by these banks and many other financial institutions. Otherwise, any talk of radical socio-economic transformation will be mere rhetoric.

Private capital, thus the private sector, MUST account too.

Issued by YCLSA

National Spokesperson
Molaodi Wa Sekake
078 164 3668

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