South African Communist Party (SACP) deputy national chairperson Thulas Nxesi has slammed the influence of the Gupta family on the
State. PHOTO: Jonisayi Maromo/ANA
The SACP had identified particular interrelated features of the Gupta patronage network, says Nxesi.
The greatest immediate threat to the gains of South Africa's national democratic revolution was posed by the "Gupta parasitic-patronage network", South African Communist Party (SACP) deputy national chairperson Thulas Nxesi said on Friday.
"Our strategic enemy in the struggle for transformation and socialism has always been, and remains, monopoly capital regardless of any racial manifestation. Whether that monopoly capital is green, white, yellow, or whatever. But the greatest immediate threat to the gains of the national democratic revolution comes from this Gupta parasitic patronage network," Nxesi said as he addressed the National Union of Mineworkers' central committee meeting in Pretoria.
Nxesi said the SACP had identified particular interrelated features of the Gupta patronage network.
"The accelerated rent-seeking based on State capture - with key state corporations, amongst them Eskom, Transnet, SA Airways and Denel, and their billions of rand being the principal target. The very lucky [Gupta] family has entered all these parastatals and is taking billions. Then we are told there is no problem," said Nxesi, who is also minister of sport and recreation.
"The emergence of a parallel shadow State, what some have described as a silent coup. It is what the SA Council of Churches calls a mafia state - with key policy and deployment decisions being taken outside the constitutional structures of government and of the ANC governing party."
Nxesi further bemoaned the "growing authoritarianism and inclinations to presidential diktat" and a growing intimidation directed at those who dared raise concerns.
"The illegal role of a paramilitary force linked to elements within the MK Veterans Association is one such instance, with physical threats against our second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila. These patterns are repeated, often more violently at the grassroot levels, with a surge of political assassinations in KwaZulu-Natal. Make no mistake, comrades, this is going to be a tough battle," said Nxesi.
"Expect smears, plots, intimidation and factionalist axing of competent comrades. Look no further than the case of Madoda Sambatha, the SACP regional secretary in the North West, axed as MEC for organising the Moses Kotane memorial lecture to be addressed by the deputy president [Cyril Ramaphosa]."
Nxesi said in the wake of growing public exposure of ongoing alleged misdeeds, "the parasitic patronage faction" had also upped the ante in creating their diversionary populist platforms.
"The Gupta-funded ideological apparatus - The New Age and ANN7, along with social media fake bloggers, and 'think tanks' like Andile Mngxitama's Black First Land First and Mzwanele Manyi's Decolonisation Foundation - fully-funded Gupta agents who seek to change the narrative. These diversionary narratives often invoke narrow, right-wing Africanist themes and often feed into the erosion of our Constitution and our movement," said Nxesi.