Eastern Cape SACP provincial secretary Xolile Nqatha has warned the ANC-led tripartite alliance against giving President Cyril Ramaphosa too much power, saying that could create another Jacob Zuma.Nqatha came out guns blazing on Saturday while addressing Cosatu delegates at the federation’s elective conference at the Orient Theatre in East London, blasting Zuma for acting as if he was above the ANC and its alliance partners.“No individual must be bigger than the party. The former president was treated like God and then we saw state capture and many other challenges that led to the ANC and its alliance partners losing credibility. We must not repeat that mistake with the current president.”
In recent times, Zuma has hit back at his detractors without naming anyone, threatening to release dirt on them if they continued to discuss him. Some political analysts believe these salvos were fired at SACP members. In his wide-ranging speech, Nqatha called on workers to oppose every kind of state capture, making an example of the controversial independent power producers (IPPs) at Eskom.
The IPP, which will cost the country billions of rands and which trade unions have been fighting, is said to be aligned to some ANC leaders.
“It is important that we speak out against anything that is going wrong. It important that we speak out against privatisation whether it comes through the back door or directly, and that is why we are calling for a review of the IPP agreements at Eskom.“
During the term of the former president, we saw a rise in tribalism with a further polarisation of our country and a threat to the unity of the nation,” Nqatha said.
“We must speak against the rise of this trend of the Zulus being defined as a nation of their own. It is important that as we move forward with land redistribution, people are not mobilised in terms of tribes,” Nqatha said.
He slammed Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s Ingonyama Trust, saying it was no different from stealing the land.A high-level report led by former president Kgalema Motlanthe found that the Ingonyama Act must be repealed.
However, Zwelithini has called on all AmaZulu to contribute R5 towards legally challenging it.
The delegates elected Thabile Kunene as Cosatu provincial chairman, Nomonde Mthembu as his deputy and Xolani Malamlela as provincial secretary, while Sithembele Mhlana has been entrusted with the party’s purse. — malibongwed@dispatch.co.za..