Gross graft in party shameful
SACP stalwart Moses Mabhida would have been very disappointed with the level of corruption in the ANC-led government because he was a straightforward leader, Mabhida’s daughter Thuthukile has said.
Thuthukile, who is the last born of the late SACP general secretary who died in exile in 1986, spoke yesterday at her family home in Imbali, Pietermaritzburg, moments before SACP leader Blade Nzimande and ANC national executive committee member Zweli Mkhize visited the family as part of the ANC’s 108th anniversary celebrations.
The two leaders conducted a wreath-laying ceremony at Mabhida’s grave.
Thuthukile emphasised that her father, who spent her entire childhood years in exile, would have been dismayed by the high levels of corruption in the country.
“My father would have hated all this corruption because he was a straightforward person who was always standing for the truth.
“There should be a means of ending this corruption, because people can’t stand it any more… It’s just too much,” she said.
Thuthukile, who is Mabhida’s only surviving child, also complained about Jacob Zuma abandoning her family.
The former president had visited every year when he was in government, she said. But Zuma stopped visiting the family after her mother, Simangele Mabhida, died in 2009.
“He (Zuma) used to come when my mother was alive, but after my mother’s death he stopped, and he never came to us. We would be lying if we were to say we know the reason he stopped coming,” she said.
She added that seeing Zuma entering the family house always made the family proud, as “we realised we were also important”.
“During his visits many people would pack the house as they all wanted to see the (former) president.
“He would give my mother groceries and some money to buy meat for Christmas,” she said.
Thuthukile said the family would love to see Zuma visiting them again.
“Sometimes I send him a WhatsApp just to greet him and ask him to help resolve family disputes over the Moses Mabhida Foundation, but he does not respond and I have since given up.”
She also said she was grateful to Mkhize and businessman and mining entrepreneur Mzi Khumalo for building a brick house for the family, which previously had lived in a mud house.
“Mzi Khumalo was approached by Zweli Mkhize to build us a proper house, because Zweli realised that we were living in a shameful house.
“Zweli visited the family one day only to find my partially blind mother mending the house with mud to close the holes. He felt ashamed and started looking for sponsors.”
She explained that she was opposed to suggestions that the Mabhida home be turned into a heritage site.
“I feel that we will have no power over it when it belongs to a heritage institution. It was a good suggestion, but the fear was that we would stop occupying it,” she said.