Wednesday, January 23, 2019

VOTER REGISTRATION

The year 2019 presents South Africa and South Africans with the most important opportunity for social and political change since 1994. In no other year will the vote of each and every South African be as critical as in 2019. This means citizens who want change must vote in their numbers because this opportunity will never come again for many years to come.

We therefore call on all young people in South Africa to come out in their numbers this coming weekend on the 26th to the 27th January 2019, to register to vote for EFF. Young people must take a decision that they will not leave it only to elderly and middle age citizens to determine political power and direction of society as it has been the case for the past 25 years. We must all adopt an attitude that says: nothing about us, without us! Register to Vote EFF in 2019.

We have observed the ANC disrupting schooling in the name of voter registration, where their volunteers have been going into schools to address learners during school hours. This disruption has been allowed by principals who are aligned to the ANC and it must come to an end. We call on the department of education to intervene and stop the madness of this anti-intellectual bunch who disrupt schooling for political gymnastics.

THE EFF MANIFESTO AND NATIONAL LIST CONFERENCE

The leadership structures of the EFF comprising of;; 52 Regional Command Teams

(RCT), 9 Provincial Command Teams (PCT) and the Central Command Team (CCT), gathered at Imvelo Lodge, Mangaung, Free State over the last weekend to consider the EFF National Elections Manifesto and National List of individuals to serve in provincial legislatures and parliament.

We are proud to announce that this assembly discussed the EFF Manifesto in detail and that the Central Command Team has since adopted it. This manifesto will be launched on the 2nd of February 2019, at a Manifesto Rally to be held at Giant Stadium in Soshanguve, Tshwane.

Accordingly, the conference also took nominations for public representatives.

Herewith is the outline of the process that was followed. First, each region met within the regional list assembly to nominate public representatives for the legislatures in each province (Province to Province List). The entire list for provincial representation was then compiled into a single ballot in provincial list assemblies.

Each province then met to consider nominations for parliament (National to National List) and a single ballot was compiled and confirmed by the entire plenary of the assembly. This was followed by voting for province to province list and national to national list simultaneously through a secret ballot.

This rigorous democratic process resulted in the entire cohort of candidates, from the Commander in Chief (CIC), to ordinary EFF members being subjected to a secret ballot. This process will be concluded by the National List Committee constitutes by the Officials of the EFF, which has the responsibility to come up with the final list of public representatives of the EFF at provincial and national level.

The National List Committee will among others things take into consideration aspects like gender balance, continuity, youth representation, geographic spread, and will also do vetting to check credit record, criminal record, political and organisational behavioural conduct of each candidate. It will also look at the social conduct of all candidates within society in general and how society receives them.

TSHWANE METRO

The EFF notes that Solly Msimang has resigned as the Tshwane Mayor stating as his reasons the need to focus exclusively on the election campaign for premiership of Gauteng. The reasons offered are unconvincing and therefore we do not accept these and dismiss them as frivolous. Their intent is to cover up a much deeper problem in the white dominated DA caucus of the Tshwane metro council. If we are to accept these reasons, then it must mean that there are different rules for black people in the DA. This is because Hellen Zille campaigned for the position of Premier of the Western Cape whilst she held the positions of the Mayor in the City of Cape Town and DA national leader.

The EFF will closely monitor developments in Tshwane and when the time to elect a new mayor comes, we will announce our cause of action.

ON BOSASA CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS

The EFF is not surprised by the revelations of massive acts of corruption levelled by the former COO of BOSASA, Mr. Angelo Agrizzi, at the State Capture Commission of Inquiry hearings. Mr. Agrizzi’s evidence has ushered the country into another network of corruption, money laundering and state capture facilitated by a powerful white man, Mr. Gavin Watson. Many prominent politicians of the ANC as expected, members of the NPA and Correctional Services have been implicated in despicable acts of money laundering and corruption allegations.

As a point of departure, we call upon heightened security and protection of Mr. Agrizzi because some of the individuals he has implicated in his testimony have a history of killing those who they disagree with, as far back as in the MK Camp of Quatro in exile.

Furthermore, we call on Nomvula Mokonyane, Gwede Mantashe, Baleka Mbete, and Nosiviwe Maphisa-°©Nqakula to all resign from both parliament and cabinet. In making the call we place emphasis on Mokonyane who has been swimming in a pool of scandals throughout her term as a cabinet member. If the President, Cyril Ramaphosa has not acted on her to this day, it must be because he too is a beneficiary of her corrupt activities.

Ramaphosa, as President of the Republic, must call an open press conference and take the country into confidence about his dealings with BOSASA. This must be a press conference in which journalists will be able to ask open questions. His explanation in parliament regarding BOSASA has exposed him as having lied, since both his son and BOSASA contradicted him. He must further produce credible evidence demonstrating that he has indeed paid the alleged R500 000 that he wrongfully received for his campaign as ANC president, as he promised to do so.

Failure to do so will lead the EFF requesting parliament to turn the state of the nation address (SONA) into the President answering questions on his involvement in the BOSASA gate.

We give the President until the end of January to comply with the above, failing which we will write to the Speaker of National Assembly to convert the SONA into a Question and Answer Session for the President.

The EFF calls on the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Adv. Shamila Batohi to pursue all those who are implicated in BOSASA without any fear or favour. She must accordingly review all NPA decisions ever taken on BOSASA and all those in the NPA who are implicated in BOSASA must resign.

South Africa suffered for a full 9 years of kleptocratic nightmares facilitated by Jacob Zuma as President of the Republic. Upon his removal, Zuma did warn South Africa that even those in the ANC who call him corrupt are the most corrupt and will be exposed. South Africans must simply ask how it is that to this day, Ramaphosa has not been referred to the ANC integrity committee given his implication in BOSASA?

The silence of the Ramaphosa Defence Force and StratCom regarding BOSASA on social and traditional media platforms is shocking to say the least. Soon, the people of South Africa will witness the alliance of the Zuma and Ramaphosa groups uniting to discredit Agrizzi.

It is clear that even the leadership of the DA is implicated in the BOSASA crimes against the public purse. We call on other companies like Bidvest to be exposed in how their dealings with government have also been facilitated. Taken the scale of business contracts Bidvest enjoys with the state, it is possible that they too have behaved in the same way that BOSASA has to secure their dominance.

Finally, we reiterate our call on the State Capture Commission of Inquiry Secretary to resign following the fact that he is implicated in the BOSASA scandal. He cannot serve as an official in a commission that hears evidence about his own involvement in corruption – this results in a clear conflict of interest.

We wrote a letter to Justice Zondo to enquire about the processes followed to procure the venue of the Commission. Justice Zondo referred us to the secretary of the commission in November and to this day the BOSASA beneficiary has not responded. We still demand full disclosure of the process followed to secure the Tiso Blackstar venue and the amounts involved.

We warned Justice Zondo and the nation about the Commission taking place in a building owned by Sunday Times. Today, it is Justice Zondo who is complaining about the media leaking sensitive commission information in pursuit of profit. In addition to the profit motive, they do it to intimidate witnesses that will release information that is not in their favour, and promote witnesses that will reveal information that is in line with their agenda to promote Ramaphosa.

We reject SANEF’s attempt to intimidate the State Capture Commission by invoking freedom of expression. If they had any problems with any of the regulations governing this commission they should have challenged them in a court of law. What is more concerning is that SANEF itself is a beneficiary of BOSASA’s dirty money. All we want to hear from SANEF is when will they PAY BACK THE MONEY.

CONCLUSION

In all of the major corruption scandals that have rocked the country recently, from the Guptas, VBS Mutual Bank and BOSASA, the EFF is the only political party that has not received dirty money. The people of South Africa must realise that no one, not even Ramaphosa, in the ANC is above the corruption that has characterised the past 25 years of ANC rule. We still have fresh scars of Ramaphosa’s involvement in the brutal murder of mineworkers in Marikana.

Even with Ramaphosa at the helm of the ANC, there is no new dawn, the ANC remains the African National Corruption it always was under Zuma. We have no business sending such corrupt men and women back into government in their thuma-°mina project;; Thuma-mina is an ANC project led by Ramaphosa to send each other to steal more money from the poor. The true ANC manifesto is what Agrizzi is presenting in the State Capture Commission.

Statement issued by EFF leader Julius Malema, 23 January 2019