BY NATASHA MARRIAN, 06 JUNE 2016, 05:40
Picture: THE TIMES
THE South African Communist Party (SACP) is standing apart from its allies on the issue of state capture and the closure of the bank accounts of the politically connected Gupta family, saying that it was misguided to shelve its investigation into the family's conduct.
The ANC announced last week that its probe into state capture had fallen flat after only one of eight people was prepared to make a written statement, the remainder fearing reprisals.
The SACP also raised concern about the apparent "collusion" by the country's financial institutions in closing Gupta-owned company Oakbay's accounts.
Cosatu has been vocal in its condemnation of the banks. The labour federation has also been critical of the Treasury.
But the SACP said yesterday the governing party was misguided in dismissing corporate capture as a "marginal issue", that there was a suggestion that people were "deliberately shorting the rand" and that it supported Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and the Treasury.
President Jacob Zuma had played down the problem of state capture, describing it as a "small issue".
SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Sunday that those involved in "parasitic" state capture in SA were "quite prepared to loot our economy into a Zimbabwean-style failed economic scenario".
He was speaking at a media briefing in Johannesburg after a meeting of the party's central committee at the weekend.
"There are suggestions that, with insider knowledge, some have deliberately shorted the rand - that is, speculatively driven down the rand's exchange value.
"They are clearly prepared to cut-and-run to Dubai leaving behind the wreckage," Nzimande said.
There had been speculation that the Gupta family had relocated to Dubai, but the family has dismissed it.
The SACP would meet the ANC leadership on the issue of state capture soon and planned to ask Cosatu-aligned unions to join a "mass action" campaign against corporate capture. It planned to fight state capture both "legally and politically".
The SACP's deputy general secretary, Jeremy Cronin, said the organisation had "strong reason to believe" that financial institutions in the country that distanced themselves from the Gupta-owned company did not collude in doing so, but rather were "under pressure of serious sanction both from an international quarter and our own regulators including the South African Reserve Bank".
"If there is a sense from Oakbay that they have been handled illegally, they have recourse to the courts - it's interesting that they haven't done so," Cronin said.
The SACP's central committee received a presentation from Gordhan at its meeting. It congratulated him for his role in "fending off parasitic activity" and for his role in mobilising South Africans collectively to ensure that the country was not downgraded to junk status by S&P Global Ratings on Friday.
The organisation also said that there were "strong indications" that the investigation into Gordhan, linked to an alleged rogue unit at the South African Revenue Service, was "factional".