NPA 'just watching' State capture continue - Blade Nzimande
9 October 2017
Johannesburg - SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande criticised the National Prosecuting Authority during his address in the party's Red October rally in Johannesburg on Sunday for being lax in prosecuting those implicated in the Gupta email leaks.
With the this year’s theme centred on gender-based violence, Nzimande said if the NPA was going to act against violence against women and children, it should also act swiftly against corruption.
He lambasted the NPA for its inefficiency in putting those implicated to book in the Gupta matter.
"The NPA is just sitting there watching State Capture. They haven't chased anybody. The Gupta emails keep being exposed and no one has ever denied them, instead most people say it’s true but let me give it context," he said.
He said looting of state-owned enterprises such as Eskom, SABC and PetroSA was weakening the capacity of government to drive a developmental agenda.
"If you steal in these companies or you allow that they are captured, you are in fact undermining our capacity to make our country better," he said, adding that State Capture was another form of counter revolution.
"If we allow looting we will never have the resources to fight gender-based violence. Even the police will be so weakened that they will not be able to work with us."
During his message of support, Cosatu President Sdumo Dlamini said workers had a vested interest in who gets elected by ANC members in the upcoming elective conference this December.
"Because it is those who will emerge in December that we are going to be looking up to, to make sure that in SA labour brokers are banned," Dlamini said.
Dlamini said Cosatu wanted leadership that was capable of uniting the ANC as well as the tripartite alliance.
"We want a leadership that will acknowledged that the alliance is the political centre and embrace the notion that alliance partners are equals. There is no junior partners, there is no senior partners in the alliance."
He added that presidential hopeful Cyril Ramaphosa should lead a collective that embraces these principles that Cosatu was putting across.
During the rally, SACP members sang songs which praised Ramaphosa which included "We are ready for Ramaphosa" and "Things will soon change".
During its message of support, a South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) member said the alliance was encouraged by the ANC Youth League in Johannesburg which broke ranks with its mother body pronouncing on Ramaphosa as its preferred candidate on Saturday during its 73rd anniversary in Hillbrow.
