Ending parasitism of Guptas not a diversion

A week in politics, as they say, can be a long time indeed. At the end of February, in its political report to the central committee, the national secretariat of the SA Communist Party focused on the dangers of corporate capture of the state. The report identified the Gupta family as a particularly dangerous, although not the only, threat in this regard.

Then, the SACP was more or less alone from within the ANC-led alliance in publicly condemning the activities of the Gupta family. This was a few weeks before comrade Mcebisi Jonas, Deputy Finance Minister, confirmed that he had been approached by members of the Gupta family and before the ANC’s national executive committee finally decided to investigate the role of the Guptas.

Of course, this was not the first time the SACP had raised the alarm around the role and influence of the Gupta family.

At May Day 2013 rallies throughout South Africa, SACP speakers roundly condemned the shameful landing of Gupta wedding guests at the Waterkloof airbase the day before.  More recently our deputy general secretary, Solly Mapaila, has led the way in speaking out about the Guptas.

The SACP’s role in this has, of course, not pleased everyone. Cosatu’s Irvin Jim, in a Daily Maverick column, spends more time attacking Mapaila than the ostensible targets of his intervention – state corruption and “white monopoly capital”.

The basic line of polemic pursued by Jim is to argue that the Guptas are a distraction from the “real” corporate capture of the state by “white monopoly capital” (would “black” monopoly capital, whatever that might mean, be okay?)

The SACP, in defence of our democratic national sovereignty and in the face of the dangers of corporate capture, has not focused exclusively on the Guptas.

In the February central committee political report, readers will note that, while several paragraphs are certainly directed against the Gupta family, the Rupert family, the Oppenheimer family, and Koos Bekker’s Naspers-Media 24-Multichoice empire are all flagged.

At the same time, we need to analyse more accurately and strategically the different and complex ways in which capital and its agents might undermine the democratic mandate of the post-apartheid South African state.

An effective anti-capitalist, and therefore an effective anti-corporate capture strategy, needs to understand the terrain much more accurately. While they will all be hostile to the SACP, the working class, a radical national democratic revolution and socialism, the Guptas, Bekkers, Ruperts and Oppenheimers have different and in some respects conflicting agendas.

Johann Rupert’s extensive business empire was inherited largely from his father Anton, a Broederbonder.

The Rupert empire is centred on two major corporations that emerged from the South African tobacco giant, Rembrandt – Remgro and Richemont.

The Rupert business empire embraces hundreds of companies in 35 countries and on six continents. It is an empire that does not depend on South African government tenders.  Johann Rupert can leave schmoozing of ministers to others.

Koos Bekker’s personal trajectory has both similar and distinct features. Like the Rupert empire, Bekker’s current empire was based on Afrikaner capital accumulation – in the case of Naspers dating back to 1914. As the NP’s favoured newspaper and school textbook publisher, the company benefited extensively after the NP’s accession to power in 1948. Like the Rupert empire, Naspers-News24 is a multinational.

It operates in 130 countries, and is listed on the JSE and in London.

However, unlike Rupert, who operates in a somewhat aloof manner towards the post-apartheid ANC-led government, Bekker’s Naspers South African media have other requirements.

They are active within highly regulated sectors and there have been constant interventions from these corporate quarters to influence and suborn ANC MPs and government officials.

By contrast with both the Ruperts and Bekkers, the Gupta family, arriving in South Africa in the mid-1990s, has been entirely parasitic for their wealth accumulation. In particular, they have targeted key parastatals, among them Eskom, Transnet, Denel and SAA, as well as provincial governments.

The Ruperts and Bekkers appear to have some degree of commitment to South Africa, presumably both for wealth preservation and sentimental cultural reasons. The Ruperts and Bekkers repatriate some of their considerable global earnings back into South Africa.

By contrast, the Gupta family is reputed to be shipping its ill-acquired wealth post-haste out of the country to Dubai in anticipation of a loss of political influence in the near-term.

For the SACP it is not the Ruperts, the Bekkers or the Guptas – it is capitalism as a global system that constitutes our principal strategic challenge.

Let’s take one topical area. If we are to advance a second radical phase of the national democratic revolution, as we surely must, we require among other things a strategically disciplined, professional National Treasury and South African Revenue Service (SARS). The Guptas’ smash-and-grab, parasitic agenda has no such interest. A National Treasury that blows the whistle on the squandering of public resources on corrupt tenders, or that asks rational questions about a mega nuclear build programme, or a SARS that probes high-income earners, are all anathema to the Guptas.

Against the parasitic agenda of the Guptas and others, the SACP supports the defence of a strong and professionally effective Treasury and SARS. We recognise the imperative for macro-economic, monetary and fiscal strategic discipline and professionalism in support of a radical second phase of the NDR.

This includes macro-economic policy aligned to re-industrialisation, a major state-led infrastructure spend programme, job creation and sustainable social redistribution. In short, we require an effective Treasury and SARS, along with development finance institutions, which form important pillars of a democratic, developmental state.

This is the only way that we can begin to roll back the neoliberal agenda of the Ruperts and Bekkers.

Exposing and putting an end to the parasitism of the Guptas and others like them is not a diversion from confronting monopoly capital as personified by the Ruperts and the Bekkers.

Defeating parasitism is essential to confronting monopoly capital and advancing, deepening and defending our national democratic revolution.

l This is a shortened version of the unsigned editorial in the latest edition of African Communist, published by the SA Communist Party.