Johannesburg - The South African Communist Party youth wing has slammed the ANC Youth League’s call to its mother body to take action against senior members who claim that the Gupta family made cabinet post offers to them.
The ANCYL, through its president Collen Maine, called on President Jacob Zuma to axe Deputy Minister Mcebisi Jonas and several anti-Gupta officials.
The call was made in Kimberley on Thursday. Ironically, Kimberley is the hometown of former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor who was the first to open a “can of worms” against the Guptas this week when she disclosed how the controversial family offered her a cabinet position in 2010.
On Satuday, the Young Communist League (YCL) of South Africa mounted a withering attack on the ANCYL following its call on Zuma to sack Jonas.
The call for the sacking of Jonas came after Jonas revealed that the Gupta family had offered him the position of finance minister before the former minister Nhlanhla Nene was fired. Jonas told of how he declined the offer. And now Maine has called on Zuma to fire him for his disclosures.
The youth league also called on the ANC to take disciplinary measures against Mentor for disclosing that she was offered the public enterprises portfolio before a decision to remove the then minister, Barbara Hogan.
In Maine’s view, Jonas and Mentor are part of a cartel whose objective was to remove Zuma as president of the ANC.
Maine said it “was a plot by a certain cartel of a third force which is determined to unseat the president of the ANC and tarnish the image of the ANC in a quest to score political points in the upcoming local government elections”.
Maine also denied claims that the Guptas have influence over Zuma’s cabinet appointments.
But the YCL would hear none of that.
They have warned Maine to refrain from seeking to “defend kleptocratic oligarchy and all forms of private monopoly”.
YCL national secretary Mluleki Dlelanga said his organisation was fully behind its mother body’s programme to confront the harmful malady of corporate capture head-on.
He said the ANCYL should direct its energy towards defending the constitution and the sovereignty of the county rather than “defending the Guptas”.
“It is crucial for the ANCYL to review the automaticity [automatic way] with which some of the members of its leadership spring to the defence of the Gupta family.
“A family that is allegedly Gupta-brokering’ cabinet and other strategic appointments such as in state-owned enterprises for their own private profit,” Dlelanga said.
He urged the youth league to instead call for “investigations into the alleged behaviour of those Gupta family members and whoever they are collaborating with”.
“One of the key questions that must worry the ANCYL, as it does worry all of us, is: How do members of the Gupta family gain prior knowledge of cabinet and other public appointments and from whom do they obtain such information that at times clearly appears to be reaching them without even known to the tripartite alliance partners?” Dlelanga asked.
He said the youth league should not be allowed to be converted into a component part of the Gupta Front or a front in automatic defence of any individual family.
The YCL is also accusing the Guptas of amassing billions of rand from a web of relationships with public establishments or individuals in positions of authority.
“This is why, as the YCL, we congratulate ANC members and leaders who have come out in defence of the revolutionary values of our national liberation movement and alliance who have refused offers of public appointments made to them by members of the Gupta family and their collaborators,” Dlelanga said.
Sunday Independent