South African Communist Party (SACP) General Secretary, Dr Blade Nzimande, says the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) now realises that the Commission into State Capture could implicate them in wrongdoing, including their alleged alignment with the VBS bank.
Last week, EFF leader, Julius Malema, lashed out at Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan saying he was an enabler of State Capture. Thousands of party supporters gathered outside the commission’s venue in Parktown, Johannesburg – calling for Gordhan to be axed from cabinet.
Nzimande was addressing the media in Benoni east of Johannesuburg, following the party’s three day Central Executive Committee meeting.
“In fact they’ve placed themselves at the centre of those people who don’t want to see progress. The cleaning of state institutions that has been captured and so on. That is why they were shouting at the commission when Pravin was testifying and shouting and threatening journalists and everybody because they themselves are afraid of where this Zondo commission is going, given their own history taking place, including the thing they have got to account to – for now. ”
Nzimande says the SACP has never received any donations from VBS Mutual Bank but only from MML Food Services Company for their 14th National Congress in 2017.
“The SACP did not receive any donations from VBS or its shareholder Vele investments. The SACP did receive a donation for our 14th National Congress in July 2017 from MML Food Services. At the time of receipt the SACP had no knowledge of any relationship between MML and VBS. In response to our legal enquiry, we have since received written confirmation that MML is not a subsidiary of VBS.”
Meanwhile, Nzimande says the imminent retrenchment of employees at the SABC is part of the detrimental effects State Capture has had within the public broadcaster. He says they are against the laying-off of workers at the SABC.
Nzimande says their hope lies with the new Minister of Communications and Telecommunications, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, to intervene and sort out the issues that continue to cripple the public broadcaster.
“What we see at SABC now, we are experiencing first hand the effects of State Capture. Because the SABC had to be captured and it was serving corrupt interests and now the worker, that’s why we are against retrenchments, because workers must not be the ones who pay for the sins of those who have been looting the state and its institutions like the SABC.”
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