'SACP leaders' phones tapped'

Blade Nzimande is the SACP secretary general as well as the Minister for Higher Education. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko/Reuters

Blade Nzimande is the SACP secretary general as well as the Minister for Higher Education. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko/Reuters

Published Jan 23, 2017

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The South African Communist Party will fight the use of state resources to purge its members and leaders from government, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande has said.

Delivering the Joe Slovo memorial lecture in Pietermaritzburg on Saturday, Nzimande said the SACP was under threat from many quarters.

As examples of the alleged purge he cited the recent killings of SACP members in Inchanga near Durban, and the removal of James Nxumalo as eThekwini mayor and Chris Ndlela as Msunduzi mayor last year.

“Why were Chris and James removed from their positions when they were doing such good work? We have never been furnished with explanations on such decisions,” Nzimande said.

He suggested that the main reason for their axing was that they belonged to the SACP and were senior members of the party in KwaZulu-Natal.

The alliance between the ANC, the SACP, Cosatu and the SA National Civic Organisation (Sanco) needed to be reformed if it were to meet current problems and avoid the risk of collapsing, Nzimande said.

Deployment of members to public office should not be concentrated in the ANC or a single individual, he added.

“When we are campaigning during the elections, we come out in numbers conducting door-to-door campaigns in a bid to ensure an ANC victory.

"It cannot be that when such a goal has been achieved, we have a chairperson who has all these powers to determine who becomes a councillor or goes to Parliament,” Nzimande said.

He added that the SACP was aware that the phones of some of its leaders were being tapped, and he questioned the motive for this.

“We need to say it clear that we know that our phones are tapped by some in the intelligence services and we want to know why this is so.”

The SACP would take action against this, he warned, but did not say how.

African News Agency

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