SACP slams Guptas over bid to 'expatriate yet more ill-gotten wealth'

The SACP has described the controversial sale of Gupta businesses as a brazen attempt by the controversial family to restore banking services, “evade tax responsibilities, and to expatriate yet more ill-gotten wealth”.

Yesterday the party said the SA Reserve Bank and commercial banks had to block what they called “manoeuvres” by the family, before billions more of public resources disappear into Dubai.

SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande made the remarks yesterday during a media briefing following a central committee meeting in Joburg at the weekend.

The meeting was the first to be held after the ANC policy conference and the SACP elective conference in July.

Last week the Guptas, President Jacob Zuma’s personal friends, announced the sale of their media empire including 24-hours news channel ANN7 and The New Age newspaper to their ally, Mzwanele Manyi, for R450 million.

This was followed by the sale of their mining company, Tegeta Exploration and Resources, to a Swiss-based company for more R2.97 billion.

Nzimande called on the parliamentary state capture inquiry to be expanded to investigate recent claims that the Guptas “pay only a fraction of their taxes”.

Parliamentarians were also suspicious of the sales, saying they suspected that the Guptas, who are implicated in serious allegations of state capture, wanted to leave the country.

The SACP also expressed deep concern about the ANC’s intentions to take disciplinary action against ANC MPs suspected of having voted for Zuma's ousting during the recent no-confidence motion against him in Parliament.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe recently wrote to axed tourism minister and MP Derek Hanekom, asking him to provide reasons why he should not be removed as chairperson of the ANC national disciplinary committee, following his series of tweets ahead of the motion.

On Saturday, Hanekom, who has spoken out against Zuma, hit back, saying he wouldn't be “intimidated by threats and letters” from speaking out against the rot within the ANC.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that egregious ill-discipline, notably by certain ministers, in some cases amounting to treasonable sharing of cabinet information with private parties and for personal profit, is allowed to pass without the mildest rebuke, while others, out of concern for the ANC and the trajectory of our country, and without any personal profit motive, are pursued,” said Nzimande.

Factional application of discipline “is wrong and will simply deepen disunity while encouraging the real miscreants”, he said.

He suggested that the MPs targeted should be engaged outside of a disciplinary process.

There was a need for a “more strategic popular front” of working class and progressive formations to connect the struggles against state capture and radical socio-economic transformation, he said.