AGAINST a background of rolling blackouts, rising poverty and an out-of-control cost of living crisis, the South African government of Cyril Ramaphosa now faces a huge political crisis, with demands for him to be impeached and resign.
The crisis is tearing the ruling ANC apart, with COSATU-affiliated unions fighting over whether to back the president or switch allegiance to the South African Communist Party (a component entity of the tripartite alliance of the ANC).
The National Executive Committee of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) has called for a full investigation into the conduct of the two members of the Independent Panel investigating the possible impeachment of Ramaphosa.
The trigger is the discovery of a huge cache of money stuffed in a sofa in the president’s Phala Phala farm.
South Africa’s former spy chief Arthur Fraser complained to the police in June that a total of US$ 4 million in foreign currency was stashed inside the couch at Ramaphosa’s home at the game farm in Waterberg, Limpopo.
He accused Ramaphosa of money laundering, corruption and covering up the subsequent theft of the cash.
The theft happened in 2020 and there is a tranche of video evidence about the thieves and a housekeeper at the farm who tipped them off.
Ramaphosa says the amount was nothing like $4m, but was $580,000 from the sale of buffalo and entirely legitimate.
All the same, on the strength of Fraser’s affidavit, a small parliamentary opposition party, the African Transformation Movement (ATM), lodged a motion in parliament demanding a so-called Section 89 inquiry into Ramaphosa’s fitness to stand office. A Section 89 inquiry sets out a process to impeach a sitting president of South Africa, if evidence emerges of wrongdoing.
Ramaphosa has declared himself against graft, and came to power by ousting his predecessor Jacob Zuma over corruption allegations.
The ANC remains deeply divided between supporters of Zuma and those who back Ramaphosa.
Leader of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema, called for the arrest of the president alleging that he had committed a crime.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) issued its statement last Saturday (December 3rd).
‘SAFTU commends the evaluation of limited information and the preliminary findings made by the Section 89 Independent Panel and calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to resign from the government as President immediately.
‘Further, we call on the police to deepen and conclude their investigation so that the President is arrested if found guilty of violating PRECCA (Corruption law of 2004). The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) must also conclude its investigation and submit its findings so that the public can know if President Ramaphosa contravened the country’s exchange control regulations.
‘Most of the unanswered questions due to the limitation of the scope of the Independent Panel can be unearthed by a proper police investigation. In addition, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) must also institute a prosecution for the crimes that the President has possibly committed, together with the ongoing investigations, to unravel those that remain sketchy and suspicious, albeit strong.
‘These revelations do not come as a surprise to us, and we have maintained from the beginning of these allegations that the President has a case to answer, especially concerning the possibility of contravening exchange controls and tax regulations.
‘Historical inference underpinned our suspicions. In the past, we had pointed out that President Ramaphosa was implicated in illicit financial outflows (IFFs) when he was at Shanduka, Lonmin and MTN. The government and different research tanks have estimated the cost inflicted by the IFFs on the South African economy at a staggering R400 billion annually. Yet little has been done to investigate, arrest, and try and put the culprits in prison.’
Corruption is in the DNA of the ANC
‘SAFTU is vindicated for consistently pointing out that the ANC is rotten to the core and neither of its warring factions is a better devil. They are all the same. It is not by mistake, therefore, that one of its senior leaders once boldly stated that all of the members of the NEC have their little skeletons in the cupboards. That statement has been proven over and over to be correct.
‘President Ramaphosa himself correctly told the State Capture Commission that the ANC was the “number one” accused of corruption. Indeed, besides other scandalous corruption reports, he has vindicated his utterances.
‘In previous statements, SAFTU has repeatedly maintained that corruption springs from the seeds of greed planted by capitalism and that it permeates all branches of the capitalist system, i.e., the capitalist enterprises, the public sector, and institutions such as political parties, trade unions, religious formations and non-governmental organisations.
‘Further, we have consistently pointed out that the country finds itself at a point of crisis, with almost all sections of the public sector in decline, collapsing or collapsed because of the ANC leadership. Hence the load-shedding turmoil that has been going on for over 15 years now; and the collapse of PRASA, SAA, Denel and another state-owned enterprise.
‘Thieves are currently mercilessly feeding from the Independent Power Producers’ contracts signed with the government with multinational corporations. Eskom is being hollowed out, and the country is plunged into darkness, all to satisfy the greed of capital in clear cohorts with the ANC government.’
President Cyril Ramaphosa must resign, and workers must build their own party.
‘The working class must take seriously the need and process to build a worker’s party on a socialist programme to fight for the seizure of power. No comprador or parasitic bourgeoisie will liberate workers from mass and structural unemployment, poverty, inequalities and corruption. If the dishonest elites don’t steal from the public, they impose neoliberal austerity, which is also based on robbing the poor to feed the elastic lust of a few for more money.
‘The working class need their own government. Neither factions of the ANC – RET or Ankoles – will champion the interest of the working class.
‘Despite each period, workers’ hopes that the incumbent might be better than the predecessor, the brutal class policy he has been carrying out with incision consistently has pushed more workers into a pauper class or underclass. This cruel class policy has been amplified by the corruption that has plundered public resources and deprived workers of social services.
‘Establishing that there is prima facie, for the allegations against the President concerning Phala Phala is just an illustration that these leaders are ruling in their narrow interest.’
There, the statement ends.
Inevitably, as part of the crisis, the ANC government is currently embroiled in a bitter dispute with public sector trade unions over its offer of a 3% wage increase, which workers have rejected.
Workers are demanding a 10% salary increase.
Public service unions are working on their next national day of action and plans for a total shutdown, with pickets and demonstrations happening now. This follows the government’s failure to respond to the submitted memorandum of demands over wages.
COSATU, FEDUSA and SAFTU mobilised all their members in government to join a national day of action two weeks ago on November 22, with their main march having taken place in Pretoria to the Treasury.
This is where the workers’ federations gave the government seven days to respond to a memorandum of demands. They called for the reversal of the unilateral implementation of a 3% wage offer, continuing to demand 10%.
The document also called on the government to return to the bargaining council in a bid to bridge the impasse and to employ more public sector workers.
The workers say the government has failed to respond, leaving them with no choice but to intensify their demonstrations.
SAFTU spokesperson Trevor Shaku explains: ‘SAFTU, COSATU and FEDUSA have not received a response to the memorandum sent to Treasury and the department of public administration. In the meantime, we are planning pickets and demonstrations in various cities in Durban, Pretoria, Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.
‘These pickets will take place between the 6th and 9th of December and thereafter we will consider another day of action further. We have served a section 77 notice and in the meantime, workers are still committed to the 10% and reject 3% and this is in the context of the rising inflation and interest rates which have made the living conditions for workers very expensive.’
