EFF statement on Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana sexual harassment charges

15 August 2022

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) calls on the immediate removal of Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana, following reports that he sexually violated a woman worker at a hotel at the Kruger National Park. The woman, who is massage therapist at the hotel, has laid sexual assault charges against Godongwana, after he appropriated the woman's vagina by fingering her. True to the misogynist practice of silencing women after violation, he also tried silencing her by bribing her with a large amount of cash.

If the ANC Government respected women, a Minister accused of sexual violence would have resigned with immediate effect, on his own accord. If the State President, Cyril Ramaphosa could just pretend to uphold his oath of office, he would have fired his Minister of Finance. But South Africa is governed by patriarchal and misogynistic filth that it embeds in every aspect of our society.

The deadly state of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) in South Africa is a direct reflection of the ANC Government's contempt for women in South Africa. Every facet of the State has and continues to demonstrate its pure hatred for women.

Parliament of South Africa unleashes thugs to sexually violate women Members of Parliament who uphold their oath of office. The justice system further torments women daily by granting bail for as little as R500 to perpetrators of GBVF in spite of the phenomenally high GBVF prevalence in South Africa.

GBVF will continue to flourish because those in power are the forefront perpetrators of these crimes. If it is not a sitting Head of State, Ramaphosa torturing his woman domestic worker, it is his Minister of Police normalising the rape of women by men with unprovoked utterances that women are lucky to be raped once and now a Minister of Finance sexual violence against a women worker.

Enoch Godongwana must know that he will not have peace as a Minister. He will not address any public meeting. He must expect disruptions. GBVF must be consciously and unapologetically disrupted and it is the EFF who will do so.

Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 16 August 2022