SACP MPs all talk and no walk

7 June 2016

Yesterday the DA called on the South African Communist Party (SACP) to support our motion to establish a parliamentary ad hoc committee to investigate revelations regarding the Gupta family and their illicit influence over the Presidency and Executive.

Today however we were subjected to mealy mouthed response from the party’s first deputy general secretary and Minister of Public works, Jeremy Cronin, suggesting that “ANC MPs with SACP membership will not allow the governing party to split on the issue of state capture”.

As a member of the SACP, an ANC MP, and member of Cabinet Cronin exemplifies the compromising conflict of interest the SACP has succumbed to. Clearly his party is merely content riding the ANC’s coattails to Cabinet and cannot be trusted to act in the public’s interest or on its own conscience. 

We intend to have our motion debated at the start of Parliament’s third term, and if Cronin and his cohorts were serious about stopping the scourge of sate capture currently crippling SA’s economy and administration, they would support it.

Issued by John Steenhuisen, Chief Whip of the DA, 7 June 2016