YCLSA statement on the constant Defence of the Gupta's by the ANCYL

19 March 2016

The Young Communist League of South Africa (uFasimba) is fully behind the programme of the South African Communist Party (SACP) to confront the harmful malady of corporate capture head-on. As the YCLSA we are calling on the leadership of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) to defend our country's constitutional democracy and democratic national sovereignty.

It is crucial for the ANCYL to review the automaticity with which some of the members of its leadership spring to the defence of the Gupta family that is allegedly "Guptabrokering" Cabinet and and other strategic appointments such as appointments in state owned enterprises for their own private profit. According to the constitution of our country, it is the prerogative of the President of the Republic to make offers and appointments of Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers. 

Instead of attacking ANC cadres who have come out openly to disclose their trauma of being offered public or government positions by members of the Gupta family, the ANCYL should call for investigations into the alleged behaviour of those Gupta family members and whoever they are collaborating with.

One of the key questions that must worry the ANCYL, as it does worry all of us, is: How do members of the Gupta family gain prior knowledge of Cabinet and other public appointments ‎and from who do they obtain such information that at times clearly appears to be reaching them without even known to the tripartite alliance partners?

The ANCYL is a youth organisation, the preparatory school of the ANC in terms of its its constitution. The ANCYL should, by virtue of its twin tasks to rally the youth behind the policies of the ANC and represent their aspirations and interests, NOT ‎be converted into a component part of the Gupta Front or a front in automatic defence of any individual family that is amassing billions of rands from a web of relationships with public establishments or individuals in positions of authority or power, while the masses of the youth of our counttry live in inequality, poverty and unemployment. The struggle to find inequality must be seen finding profound expression in the real life of the ANCYL in terms of the vision of the Freedom Charter.

‎The YCLSA condemns in strongest terms possible all forms of behaviour that seek to defend kleptocratic oligarchy and all forms of private monopoly. This is why, as the YCLSA, we congratulate ANC members of leaders who have come out in defence of the revolutionary values of our national liberation movement and alliance who have refused offers of public appointments made to them by members of the Gupta family and their collaborators. We stand by them!!

Statement issued by Mluleki Dlelanga, YCLSA National Secretary, 19 March 2016