The South African Communist Party (SACP) says it will close ranks and protect Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan against those who have looted the public purse.
First Deputy Secretary Solly Mapaile was speaking at the closing rally of the SACP’s Red October Campaign held at Nyanga in Cape Town. Mapaile says there are people he calls protectors of looters that continue to fight to displace Gordhan from the mission of cleaning out corruption in State Owned Enterprises.
The theme for the SACP final rally to close the Red October Campaign was about ending corruption and looting, especially within municipalities. The SACP called for the end of the tender system, calling it the de-tenderising of the state.
Mapaile says it fails logic that government employees send out applications for tenders and consultants for all functions. “We must de-tenderise the state, this thing of everything that is done within government must be through a tender must come to an end, and the de-tenderisation of the state must start at local government”
Mapaile says the Red October Campaign is also a period for communists and socialists to reconnect in their mission of clean governance and effective service delivery. He spoke out against those who still want to continue with the looting of state resources.
“They are now focussed on the Department of Public Enterprises, particularly Gordhan. For that reason we must be close and close ranks with him and make sure they don’t displace him, and he is given the authority and the power to repel the new looters who also steal from our state owned enterprises, they continue to run these negative campaigns to besmirch his name just because he’s protecting the state owned enterprises of our country.”
Mapaile also condemned possible retrenchments at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Delivering a message of support at the function, ANC Head of Elections in the Western Cape, Ebrahim Rasool says the ANC can reclaim the province from the DA during next year’s general elections.
Rasool says the DA is imploding and has cited the recent resignation of DA Councillors in the City of Cape Town. “We are now on the threshold of opportunity in this province, the DA is falling apart as we stand here, they are moving people around all the time, Patricia De Lille served them for ten years, she is gone, all of this is the opportunity for the people of the Western Cape to look to the ANC and its alliance partners for a solution.”
The other alliance partners like the South African National Civic Organisation re-iterated their commitment to fighting corruption. The SACP has pledged its support for the ANC in the upcoming elections, but has warned that this is not a blank cheque.
