Johnathan Paoli
THE SACP has vehemently denied allegations of receiving R1 million funding for a conference in exchange for the awarding of tenders.
Following a 51 page report, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), released leaked voice recordings of meetings between a Coinvest representative, Nsfas board chairperson Ernest Khosa and two other individuals.
The Coinvest rep claimed that Higher Education Minister and Chairperson of the SACP Blade Nzimande as well as the party in general received kickbacks in order to secure tenders.
Speaking during Joe Slovo Commemoration Day at the Avalon Cemetery in Soweto on Saturday, secretary-general Solly Mapaila denied receiving kickback, and said that their organisation is against corruption.
“Contrary to the allegations spread by OUTA without hearing the other side of the story, the SACP has never approached any person to seek illegitimate funding. It is unacceptable for anyone to try to co-opt the name of the SACP in their gossip or shenanigans. We remain steadfast in our stance against corruption,” Mapaila said.
Nzimande has served as the SACP’s secretary-general for 24 years before being appointed chairperson in 2022.
Meanwhile, more voices have joined the growing wave of condemnation and calls for the immediate removal of both the Minister as well as Khosa.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said on Sunday that this revelation was not surprising.
“This revelation comes as no surprise, confirming our earlier concerns about the questionable nature of the minister and NSFAS board’s staunch defence of the corrupt Direct Payment of Allowances scheme for months,” Mashaba said.
DA leader John Steenhuisen is expected to lead a live broadcast addressing the latest scandal on Monday, announcing urgent action to hold Minister Nzimande accountable for this blatant corruption.
On Saturday, the FF Plus requested an urgent meeting of the parliamentary portfolio committee on higher education, science and innovation following the latest revelations with the party’s spokesperson Wynand Boshoff saying that the financial aid scheme had been in a state of emergency ever since it was saddled with delivering on the ANC’s promise of free higher education in 2018.
In addition, the Communist party has lashed out at former uMkhonto weSizwe members, including former President Jacob Zuma, calling their endorsement of a new political party under the same name, ill-discipline, secessionist and divisive.
“To utilise the oath that we took under arms in the name of the African National Congress, we renounce all other previous association and participation in the ANC when you joined uMkhonto Wesizwe. You rejoined the ANC I knew, you took an oath under MK with the political leadership of the African National Congress. That’s the oath we took,” Mapaila said.
This follows as Zuma campaigns for the MK party in Mpumalanga, the same province where the ANC prepares for its 112th birthday celebration.
Mapaila said that if Zuma had any sense of honour left in him, he would remember his own disapproval of a faction in the ANC that left to form the Congress of the People (COPE) following the 2007 Polokwane conference.
Zuma visited Mkhondo, Mpumalanga on Saturday to campaign for the recently formed party and said that he was tired of sitting back and watching things fall apart.
Zuma said that the ruling party no longer led or listened to the people, and had strayed from its mandate of service to the nation.
On Sunday, Zuma addressed supporters in Newcastle in KZN in a move seen as an effort to win IFP loyalists.
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