There is something creepy about the National Development Plan (NDP). It represents a wholesale attempt by those with ulterior capitalist interests to replace Ruth First’s Freedom Charter. This was said by Irvin Jim in his speech during the Ruth First Memorial Lecture at WITS University in Johannesburg.
Said Jim: “The NDP is a “cut and paste” from the Democratic Alliance policy, and is based on the exploitation of black workers and maintenance of the colonial and capitalist power relations that define South African society.”
According to Jim, those behind the NDP were trying to undo the gains the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) had made, but he did not see it succeeding. “The NDP is not a working class plan, and it will fail to meet even its own mediocre targets.”
Jim posed a question to the audience: “How many of you remember Vision 2014, which was drafted in 2004, to halve poverty, unemployment and inequality by 2014?”