9 November 2019

The South African Communist Party (SACP) is resolute in its stance and fight against state capture and other forms of corruption and wrongdoing. The SACP will not allow anything whatsoever or either any person or establishment to push the Party to retreat from this commitment. It is common knowledge that the networks of state capture and their patronage and parasitic extensions have resorted to attempts at tarnishing the image of the persons who took up the fight to expose and uproot state capture. The national imperative to fight corruption includes combating malicious and baseless allegations, in general, and those used by the state capture agenda in its desperate fightback, in particular.

The SACP therefore strongly denounces the malicious and baseless allegations manufactured to implicate it in alleged wrongdoing and dismisses such allegations with the contempt they deserve. It does not take rocket science to see what game is being played through such allegations. The SACP strictly reserves its rights in law. This is a direct response to the allegations contained in a correspondence circulating on digital messenger platforms, purported to have been sent to comrade Thulas Nxesi, SACP Deputy National Chairperson, in his capacity as the Minister, by the incumbent Public Protector Adv. Busisiwe Mkhwebane, and to the inquiries about it. The SACP understands that those implicated did previously respond, in one way or another. See, for example, Blowing the whistle on malicious whistle-blowers or https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-07-30-blowing-the-whistle-on-malicious-whistle-blowers/. 

The SACP also understands that these allegations have already been investigated by another competent public institution with a constitutional standing. The attempt to resuscitate such unfounded allegations using the Public Protector for a “second bite” is wasteful and malicious, to say the least.

Arising out of its Central Committee session held in June, the SACP placed on record, through its post-meeting public statement, its decision calling for Parliament to conduct an inquiry into the fitness of Mkhwebane to hold office. Following the announcement of the decision, which the SACP remains committed to, certain social media accounts were used to launch the so-called “breaking news” announcing this or that investigation by the incumbent Public Protector into allegations purported to be associated with the SACP. 

Last but not least, for 40 years from 1950 the Communist Party was banned by the apartheid regime under the Suppression of Communism Act. Communists were discriminated against, attacked and others tortured and imprisoned or even murdered by state establishments and their networks. The SACP fought against the suppression and for a democratic South Africa in a resolute way. In no way shall the SACP allow the return of the suppression in any form, including in the form of criminalisation or irregularisation of the employment or appointment of communists in government or any branch of our state.