Sisulu calls for ANC investigation on Zuma
President has clung to office ‘because of the support of most of the party’s top leaders’
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress should initiate disciplinary action over allegations that President Jacob Zuma and members of a family in business with his son have looted state coffers, according to a member of his cabinet who is running to replace him as party leader.
“The ANC should act decisively on anybody in authority who is suspected or alleged to be doing wrong,” Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said in an interview on Sunday in the northeastern town of Polokwane. “The fact that the president is involved” shouldn’t make a difference, she said.
Separate reports by the nation’s graft ombudsman in November, and the country’s main church organisation and a team of top academics in May allege members of the Gupta family used their links to Zuma to secure sweetheart contracts and deals from state companies. While thousands of emails between the Guptas, their staff and business associates that were later leaked to the local media show how the family allegedly benefited from undue influence over the government, Zuma and the Guptas have disputed their authenticity and denied wrongdoing.
Zuma’s leadership and implication in a succession of scandals has eroded support for the 105-year-old ANC, which has ruled Africa’s most-industrialised economy since the end of white-minority rule in 1994. It lost control of Pretoria, the capital, and Johannesburg, the economic hub, in municipal elections in August last year.
The president has clung to office because of the support of most of the party’s top leaders, who rely on him for their posts in the cabinet and government.
Party divide
Divisions within the party were laid bare on Aug. 8, when more than two dozen ANC lawmakers backed an opposition motion of no confidence in Zuma. ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe announced on Aug. 15 that three of the party’s lawmakers who openly backed the unsuccessful bid to oust Zuma would face disciplinary action.
Sisulu, 63, criticised the party’s actions, saying it had exercised selective judgement by targeting some of its members who failed to toe the party line, while failing to take action against the president. ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa did not answer calls seeking comment.
Sisulu is among several candidates bidding to replace Zuma when he steps down as party leader in December.