Zuma in Cosatu’s cross-hairs
Union leader says president is silent on KZN killings
COSATU general-secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali has blasted President Jacob Zuma for keeping mum on the political killings in KwaZulu-Natal.
Speaking at Nehawu Eastern Cape’s 30th anniversary celebrations at the Walter Sisulu University’s Nelson Mandela Drive campus in Mthatha yesterday, he also said Zuma had failed to speak out against corruption and the Guptas.
The federation has consistently called on Zuma to be fired.
“It is against this background that we are saying a leader who has never spoken against corruption or the Guptas, who has never pronounced on these things, that he must step down,” he said to rousing applause from hundreds of people who attended the event.
Among those attending were Nehawu’s first deputy president Michael Shingange, SACP second deputy general secretary Chris Matlhako, ANC Eastern Cape provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukaitobi and former finance deputy minister Mcebisi Jonas.
Ntshalintshali said the current ANC decided its leadership using money, while adding that every story in newspaper concerning the ANC was negative nowadays.
“We cannot donate the ANC to hooligans and criminals. There have been people preaching that the alliance must be broken. We will never allow the ANC to die despite the fact that it is killing itself,” he said.
He also lashed out at Zuma for having endorsed former African Union Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to be his successor as ANC president.
“It is unprecedented that when a president is about to step down, you look into your house for a successor,” he said, referring to Dlamini-Zuma being Zuma’s ex-wife.
Cosatu has been vocal in its support for current ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa to take over from Zuma after the December elective conference.
But Ntshalintshali explained this by6 saying it had been agreed earlier in 2012, prior to Ramaphosa’s election in Mangaung, that a deputy president would succeed the president.
Meanwhile, Jonas said the upcoming ANC elective conference should not be about changing the faces of leaders but also focus on building dynamism within the party to help with the transformation of the developmental agenda of the country.
However he argued that the party should not put its faith on a single individual to turn its fortunes around and propel the country forward.
“It is impossible. We know that with what is happening now.”
Mathlako said while the ANC could do whatever it wanted with Zuma, the rest of South Africa was entitled to state their opinions about him as the president of the country. — sikhon@dispatch.co.za