EFF STATEMENT ON BEN MARTINS AND THE SACP LINKS TO THE GUPTA FAMILY
Thursday, November 9, 2017
The EFF calls on all members of the SACP in the Jacob Zuma cabinet to stop pretending to hold any moral high ground over the matter of Gupta capture and confess all their links. The SACP has made calls on several occasions for Zuma to step down following the reality of his compromised corrupt business relationship with the Gupta family. However, SACP leaders have not taken into consideration their own complicity, implication and participation as cabinet members in handing over our country to the Gupta family.
Revelations coming out of the Eskom enquiry have now fully implicated one of the SACP leaders, Ben Martins who has admitted to having met members of the Gupta family on many occasions. Ben Martins recalls all meetings in which he met the Guptas, yet denies the one specific instance in which the Guptas promise to influence the judiciary regarding the court date in the Brian Molefe matter. Eskom suspended legal head Suzanne Daniels testified that Ajay Gupta in this meeting promised to speak to someone at the Deputy Judge President's office to have the hearing take place after December 2017.
This implies that Martins participated in an illegal plot to influence the decisions of the Deputy Judge President through a back door. Alternatively, that he knew this and did nothing to report it. Most importantly, he facilitated the Gupta capture of Eskom. The EFF does not believe Martins' denial of this meeting particularly because he seems to know at all times where he was, yet he needs a diary to in essence fabricate further lies about his whereabouts.
The SACP is fully compromised and the only redemption is that its leadership must call out all SACP ministers and deputy ministers in the Zuma cabinet to come out clean on Gupta links. This will help advance the process of bringing the enquiry into state capture to a close sooner than expected and remove Zuma before this family also compromises the only arm of the state left in our democracy; the judiciary.
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 9 November 2017
