PAC LAUNCHES ECONOMIC STATUS CAMPAIGN.

The Pan Africanist Congress on Wednesday chose Workers' Day to launch its economic status campaign, which it said was aimed at ensuring that Africans were no longer doomed to be perpetual third class citizens in their own country. Speaking at a rally at the Balfour Stadium, PAC deputy president Motsoko Pheko said many promises had been made to improve the lives of Africans. However, the rich were getting richer and the poor, poorer. The PAC's campaign would focus on five areas, including free education, equitable redistribution of land, abolishing the right to property in the Constitution, cancelling apartheid-era debt and opposing privatisation. Pheko said it was very clear that a nation could not put everything up for sale and then lie to its people about providing basic services. "You cannot sell the land, education, water, electricity health care and all that is sacred to the African people and then promise to deliver. You cannot continue to pay a bad debt with the money of the African people and expect to deliver public services to them. "You cannot give all the rights to individuals and whites in the 'property clause' of your Constitution and deliver wealth to the African people." The total liberation of the African people involved more than the flag and Parliament, he said. "A country that is not economically free is not fully politically free. A people who cannot control or influence their wealth cannot control the future." Privatisation deprived Africans of access to affordable services and continued to create massive job losses, Pheko said. He called for a special grant for the unemployed. Pheko was also critical of Education Minister ...