The South African Communist Party (SACP) called on Sunday for a review of the process under which government contracts are awarded and demanded that leaders stop using state resources to amass personal wealth.
The comments came after media reports that Julius Malema, the youth leader of the African National Congress (ANC), had used his political influence to win multimillion-rand infrastructure contracts. Malema has denied the allegations.
“We need to ensure that public resources are used developmentally and not misdirected into private accumulation,” said Blade Nzimande, Cabinet minister and secretary general of the SACP, after a two-day meeting of the party in Johannesburg.
Transparency around tendering
The party’s decision making body resolved to put pressure on President Jacob Zuma’s government to review how contracts are tendered.
“More and more we run the danger of having state departments tendering out almost all of their activities,” Nzimande said. “We need much greater transparency around the tendering process.”
The communists are part of a tripartite ruling alliance led by the ANC and also including leading trade union federation the Congress of South African Trade Unions. If the government ignores their demands, Zuma risks alienating poor South Africans who continue to struggle 16 years after the transition to democracy.
The SACP has supported a call by Cosatu for a lifestyle audit of the country’s top politicians which aims to expose leaders who gain wealth through corrupt means.
It is the latest in a series of issues pitting the unions and communists against the ANC-led government. The left helped Zuma become president in last year’s elections and have subsequently demanded a change to the country’s pro-business economic policies.
Tenderpreneurs
The racist notion that the progress of black youth in the post-democratic dispensation was automatically a consequence of corruption must be confronted, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema said on Saturday.
Malema said certain “revelations” had come to light “in the process of engaging the entire discourse of media conducted lifestyle audits”.
“First is the racist notion and supposition expressed by both black and white people that the success and progress of black youth in the post democratic dispensation is automatically a consequence of corruption. This notion should be openly confronted and exposed as it has potential to undermine our hard won freedom to participate actively in the economy,” Malema wrote in an opinion article published by City Press.
“Second is the notion that seeks to criminalise all entrepreneurs that provide services to government as inherently corrupt and unethical, and labelled tenderpreneurs who have no brain and skill to do anything productive. The question we should ask is who should provide services to the state if all black entrepreneurs who put up consulting and construction firms are going to be rubbished as inherently corrupt tenderpreneurs.” – Sapa