The stakes for this weekend’s ANC national executive committee (NEC) got higher on Friday with former president Jacob Zuma accusing his successor of betraying the party’s founders and of hypocrisy.
In a hard hitting response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s letter to party members sent out earlier this week, Zuma, in an open letter to Ramaphosa and other high-ranking ANC members, wrote on Friday that by accusing the ANC for acts committed by a few of its individual members, “you, Mr President, betray Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Sol Plaatjie, John Langalibalele Dube, Rev Rubusana, chief Albert Luthuli, Dr Alfred Xuma, Dr Moroka and all those who assembled on January 8 1912 to form this glorious movement called the ANC”.
Under Zuma, corruption became endemic and some of the scandals are being interrogated by the commission of inquiry into state capture. Zuma himself has been implicated many times in relationships with the Gupta family.
The ANC is under increasing pressure to act against those in its ranks who are accused of corruption. Anger about the issue of corruption in the party has been fueled by allegations of misuse of relief funds earmarked by the government to purchase personal protective equipment aimed at fighting the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The high levels of corruption prompted Ramaphosa to write a letter to ANC members decrying the scourge in the party and in the country. The issue will take centre-stage at the NEC meeting.
“It would be a colossal reversal of our democratic gains if you are placing the ANC as accused number one. This sounds like a public relations exercise and a grand scheme that does not help to build and promote the ANC,” Zuma said in his letter, which he said he wrote as one of the ANC members addressed by Ramaphosa.
Earlier this week, Ramaphosa said in the letter to party members that the ANC needs to accept that its leaders stand accused of corruption — and that the party itself is “accused number one”.
Ramaphosa said that while corruption is rampant in both the public and private sectors, it is deeply rooted within the party and within the government.
“As the inheritors of the legacy of Luthuli, Tambo and Mandela, we must be honest with ourselves. We must acknowledge that our movement has been and remains deeply implicated in SA’s corruption problem. We have to be sensitive to the concerns that are being raised by our people about our role as a movement in corrupt activities,” Ramaphosa said on Sunday.
Early on Friday, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive of the ANC had a committee meeting in which the issue of corruption and criminally accused leaders, such as former Ethekwini mayor Zandile Gumede, was discussed, with them being urged to step aside from their positions.
Gumede is Zuma’s key ally.
Allegations of corruption have been rife in recent weeks with politically connected individuals accused of milking the state via coronavirus-related tenders. Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Khusela Diko and the Gauteng health MEC Bandile Masuku have had to take leave. Law enforcement agencies are investigating Diko’s husband’s company regarding involvement in Covid-19 tenders.
‘Worst betrayal’
In his letter, Zuma said Ramaphosa writes for his “own desires to plead for white validation”.
“You write for your own desires to plead for white validation and approval, the worst betrayal of Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and others who sacrificed their own freedom for the ANC,” Zuma wrote.
“With your pen, you desecrate the graves of young men and women who lived and died cruel deaths in the hands of apartheid security forces and mercenaries. These heroes paid the highest price fighting for our freedom and in defence of the ANC. We should therefore never implicate them when we, as individuals, are accused of corruption and misconduct.”
The former president said his letter did not seek to undermine Ramaphosa at all or to attribute every weakness or challenge facing the ANC or the state solely to him.
“On the contrary, I am simply requesting that each one of us must face, as individuals, allegations levelled against us without implicating our movement or naming it accused number one or asking it to bury its head in shame, when individuals are being challenged for their actions.
“Mr President, it is unforgivable to label our rank and file members as criminals for the crimes you and those with whom you serve in the structures of the state are accused of. The ANC has thousands and thousands of members and the overwhelming majority of them are not corrupt.”
Zuma said the overwhelming majority ANC supporters are “the poorest of the poor ... They cannot and should not be accused of the crimes committed by a few comrades deployed in government”.
He said he was not attributing the weak state of “our movement” to Ramaphosa only, but casting aspersion on the president, Zuma said: “Maybe, Mr President, this is the opportune time to tell our members whether during the so-called “nine wasted years” any of your companies ever did business with government (national or provincial) while you were deputy president of our movement and the country.”
“Mr President, It appears that it has become your hallmark since our 54th National Conference to divert accusations from yourself rather than to face them and clear your name,” he said.
Zuma said Ramaphosa must not deflect attention from accusations that he received “almost R1bn in donations from white monopoly capital just to win an internal ANC contest”.
“The ANC has repeatedly decried this phenomenon as something foreign to its culture, policies and constitution. We all know that such donations amounted to sacrificing the historic mission of the ANC for 30 pieces of silver,” Zuma said.
A full version of former president Jacob Zuma’s letter can be found here.
With Claudi Mailovich
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