Statement by the the SACP Limpopo Provincial Working Committee for and on behalf of the Provincial Interim Leadership Committee, September 13 2011:

SACP Limpopo calls on the Limpopo Provincial Government to step down

The South African Communist Party Provincial Working Committee, an intermediary structure in between the Provincial Executive Committee sittings, held its ordinary meeting on the 9th of September 2011 in Polokwane to receive reports from its Constitutional structures to reflect, among others, on the general political developments in the province.

The PWC meeting was part of a routine exercise to assess the progress made by the SACP in its revolutionary program in taking forward the working class struggles within the context of the National Democratic Revolution.

Notably, the PWC received reports about the recent anti-corruption march led by Cosatu and strongly supported by the broad mass democratic formations and the Alliance on the 26th of August 2011.

After lengthy deliberations the SACP noted with contempt the depth and magnitude of the extend of the web of corruption allegations within the Limpopo Provincial Government Administration.

The main concern for the SACP is in so far as the far reaching consequences in terms of  implications and the bearing of these corruption allegations are likely to have on the image and moral integrity of the Tri-Partite Alliance in course of leading  the prosecution of the National Democratic Revolution for socio-economic transformation on the one hand, and the championing of service delivery to the working class and the rural poor on the other.

The scourge of corruption undermines the mandate which the Alliance is outstandingly entrusted with in leading social transformation and eradication of the apartheid colonial and capitalist legacy of inequality and poverty that adversely affects the working poor and the rural poor.

It is clear from the contents of the Cosatu Memorandum as well as the contents and nature of the charges laid with the Law Enforcement Agencies such as the South African Police Services, the specialised services for serious economic offences, that there are serious forms of economic offences and misconduct which are gross and appalling. 

According to the Cosatu Memorandum and the subsequent criminal charges laid thereby, there is reason to believe, that there is serious abuse of state power and machinery by some elements entrusted with the responsibility of administering the public affairs in Limpopo Province.

It is the firm believe of the SACP that whenever public officials are entrusted with the mandate both by the electorate and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa to manage and administer the common affairs of the populace, such officials must display a great deal of fairness, an impeccable record of loyalty and honest service to the people. This must be based on due observance of the tenets that underlie administrative justice and the equitable distribution of economic opportunities to all the citizens irrespective of their background or location or believe or gender orientation and age etc.

The SACP is of the view that these precepts of democratic practice have been grossly undermined wilfully and intentionally by some individuals who hold positions of public trust in the Limpopo Provincial Administration. Through plunder and looting of state resources, these culprits have personally enriched themselves and their cronies beyond imagination at the expense of the working poor and rural poor, who still go without clean water and sanitation, quality education and employment let alone poor quality of health facilities such as clinics and hospitals.

Furthermore, the SACP has characterised this coterie of looters and plunderers as a political and business faction that undermines the capacity and moral leadership of the Alliance to drive and implement the progressive policies of the Alliance-led Government to deliver a better life for all. Notably, this faction uses their ill begotten resources to manipulate political organisations of the Alliance in pursuit of self-centred political ambitious.

In this connection, as the SACP, we have reason to believe that the resources so looted and stolen from the state are channeled to wage a counter-revolutionary upsurge against the sitting democratically elected leaders of the Alliance especially at a national level, thereby sowing divisions and confusion within our society. The recent media revelations that money is imported from Limpopo Province to fund dubious political activities in some parts of the country serves as no further requirement of prima facie proof.

Subsequently, without any hesitation, the SACP supports the concerns and demands as raised by Cosatu in the province during its recent anti-corruption march to the Provincial Government.

For its part, the SACP is of the view that, if the concerns raised by Cosatu and the scandalous reports are anything to go by, then we take a deem view of the rot and corruption that runs through the Limpopo Provincial Administration which can best be characterised as kleptocratic.

Accordingly, the SACP in Limpopo make bold to call upon the Limpopo Provincial Administration to step down and that the Government be placed under administration as a matter not only of necessity but urgency.

In addition, the SACP calls upon the Law Enforcement Agencies to move with the speed of lightning in bringing to finality the investigations and prosecutions of the reported criminal cases of corruption within the Provincial Administration as accordingly reported by Cosatu.

These agencies have a duty to keep the public abreast on the developments ands the progress which is being made at all material times given the gravity of the charges.

The people of Limpopo, the working class and the poor deserves loyal and honest servants committed to the course of changing the quality of their working and living conditions for a better life. Therefore, the SACP calls upon the working class in this part of the land to join hands in a common class war to fight against corruption and against a tiny counter-revolutionary elite within our society who are the stooges of imperialism and the bourgeois forces. Let us close ranks against a common enemy which is corruption and its agents.

The SACP calls upon the Limpopo Provincial Government to step down. Failure to do so will result in the SACP intensifying its call through the Red October Campaign.

Statement issued by SACP Limpopo, Interim Provincial Secretary Gilbert Kganyago, September 13 2011

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