The direct payment policy has been a thorny issue in the sector of Higher Education due to many factors. The main factor has been the process of outsourcing this system and appointing unknown service providers who are not even recognized by the Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA). Through countless inquiries on the origins of the companies and how they got the contract, it finally dawned on us that NSFAS would never approve such a scandalous method without cooperation from SAUS. The South African Union of Students (SAUS) is a key cog in the machinery that continues to exploit the children of the Working Class and the Peasantry.
At the beginning of the year, NSFAS published the NSFAS Financial and Academic Eligibility Criteria for 2023. In the over 50-page document, NSFAS imposed the Direct Payment method and the Straight-to-Landlord policy. The SRCs from across the country rightfully rejected this due to NSFAS imposing a policy without maximum consultation. It was in one of these meetings that SRC members from across the country found out that SAUS had approved on behalf of the SRCs it represents without consultation! This was the first warning flag which indicates that this process was a patently corrupt process. This triggered a response from the SRCs which rejected this agreement. SAUS was forced to convene an extended NEC meeting to posture themselves as consultors of the masses of our people. In that very same meeting, SAUS was roundly rejected for taking decisions without consulting the SRCs. That was the last time we heard of SAUS, and we never heard or saw a statement against them. It became clear to everyone that SAUS had sold students out! Rumors abound that the President of SAUS (Yandisa Ndzoyiya) allegedly received over R2 million to approve these bogus fintech companies. In the words of Pravin Gordhan, students started connecting the dots and realized that SAUS is not an ally but an enemy.
After this realization, the majority of the SRCs (excluding the University of Fort Hare Institutional SRC and the University of Witwatersrand SRC) embarked on an occupation of the offices of NSFAS to raise their dissatisfaction. NSFAS responded by activating the might of the State (Police) and private Security who are nothing but mercenaries of the bourgeoisie. It is from that point that SRCs began giving in while some began accepting bribes to keep quiet. Some rejected it rhetorically (UFH Institutional SRC is a clear example) but practically told students to onboard. It is true that an unled revolution always collapses due to the lack of organized leadership. Organized leadership acts as a vanguard that constantly advances the struggle of a class or strata in society. The struggle for free, quality, decolonized, and well-resourced education is a class struggle that requires class consciousness. Direct Payment entrenches the commodification of education and further exposes the system to capitalist penetration. SAUS has chosen to run with the wolves and now they are howling with the pack as Leon Trotsky would put it.
The lack of their leadership in this struggle exposed the weaknesses of the SRCs and the weakness of the subjective factor. In his classic work, The Transitional Program, Leon Trotsky made it clear that the problem we have in this era of proletarian struggle is a problem of leadership. He further exposes the fact that the objective conditions for a socialist revolution are there, but the subjective conditions are not there. This means that in the 1930s, Leon Trotsky realized that the Socialist movement has an issue of leadership. The opportunistic and reformist character of our leadership has been laid bare through this direct payment policy. Some of them are members of the SACP and its associate structures yet they have indulged in one of the most patently exploitative methods of disbursing allowances. They approved companies that are headquartered in New Zealand claiming that they are overthrowing 'White Monopoly Capital'. In the previous article, I clearly exposed how this in dialectical laws is not a negation but rather a multiplication of a degenerate tendency. They substituted the capitalists who were operating in the decentralized system and replaced them with unknown start-ups that have no track record in the space. To emphasize, these entities are not even registered with the FSCA. One can conclude with confidence and disgust (which is a paradox) that SAUS has the blood of students on their hands. Students are dropping out due to not having funds, and students are committing suicide and subjecting themselves to prostitution and drug abuse because of a SAUS which chose to take pictures with the blunt Blade Nzimande. NSFAS has just recently defunded thousands of students across the country, yet the SAUS spokesperson and Deputy Secretary General of the lumpen, reformist, and class collaborationist SASCO (Asive Dlanjwa) is busy posturing on social media as if nothing is happening.
Students must reject SAUS with the contempt they deserve because they have chosen to abandon students. In the words of Leon Trotsky, "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on - into the dustbin of history." Student Organizations that still have a revolutionary bone in their body must consign SAUS to the dustbin of history where they belong. SRCs must either call for a SAUS Congress (which should have been convened in June because their term has expired) and elect revolutionary leadership which will turn the reformist union into a fighting organ of the masses or form a new revolutionary union that will not be tainted by the vile and corrupt character of SAUS. We must not be afraid to break new ground and pioneer new things in the name of working smart. Revolutionaries from across the Left spectrum must move beyond agitating for an inclusive union that represents all SRCs from across the sector (including TVET colleges) but must be laying the groundwork for the formation of such. In the formulation of Marcus Garvey, material conditions are forcing us to be organized and as revolutionary Marxists of the Bolshevik tradition we must not lag behind the movement of the masses, yet we must not move too ahead of the masses. We must move with them but be clear to all that we are the vanguard of this struggle.
The EFFSC must begin reaching out to like-minded organizations and SASCO branches that will be progressive in this struggle even though we know they will be forced to sell out either through the intervention of 'Abakhuluwa' or through the sheer selloutism that is pervasive in their structures. A United Front must be formed to combat this accelerated commodification and neo-liberalization of our sector at the hands of the pseudo-Communist pair of Buti Manamela and the blunt Blade Nzimande. We must create a new organ that will be the base of the movement and it must be controlled by students, for students, and only students. This Organ must also be tasked with linking our struggle to the Workers' struggle in urban areas and in the rural areas it must link the struggle to the struggle of Workers and Peasants. The de-commodification of our education will never be achieved through studentism, it can only be achieved through a class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisies on the one side, and the working class and the peasantry on the other side. A new worker-student alliance must be formed with urgency, while we raise the clarion call of #FreeEducationNow!
Very informative read.
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