Bantu Holomisa questions ANC ‘investigating itself’

United Democratic Movement’s Bantu Holomisa has said the ANC cannot be expected to investigate itself and right now these people are contaminated and no one has been arrested. He calls for a need for new governance in the country.

Holomisa said the current executive members of the governing party should resign with immediate effect after allegations of looting funds earmarked to combat the Covid-19 pandemic surfaced.

He calls for some members of the governing party to step aside and let a caretaker government take the reigns to come up with strong legislation to fight corruption.

“This looting started as early as 1995,” said Holomisa, insistent on a need for an interim government to reside with immediate effect.

Holomisa’s views have been seconded by Congress of the People’s spokesperson Dennis Bloem, who called for the country to remain vigilant towards corruption as the country had “learnt the hard way through the Nkandla corruption scandal”.

“We must not rest on our laurels,” he said, calling for law enforcement agencies probing Covid-19 PPE (personal protective equipment) corruption to provide fortnightly progress reports, as opposed to monthly updates.

The social welfare department must be investigated with a fine toothcomb he insists, suspecting a plethora of corruption in the department.

“We want to know all the companies which got tenders to supply PPE, food parcels, transporting the homeless to the shelters and the cost of the private accommodation and all other expenses. This includes the social relief of distress grants R350 monthly (unemployment grant).”

The party has rejected President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Ministerial Committee probing Covid-19-related corruption.

“We believe this is an insult to the people of the country. We don’t have any trust in these ministers to investigate anything that has to do with corruption. There are serious allegations against some of their colleagues who are also suspects.”

The president cannot run the country by commissions of inquiries, Bloem stressed.

The mounting criticism against the ANC comes as even AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo mentions that if he could, he would describe the party’s image to date as a “devils fart”, although he couldn’t do so in the presence of pastors, he told mourners at a funeral service of AbaThembu chief Sandile Mgudlwa over the weekend.

“The ANC was so innocent when it was in the hands of Oliver Tambo. What we are seeing today, I don’t know what to call it all. I would say it’s a devil’s fart, but because I am in the presence of pastors I can’t say that.”

@King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo#leadership pic.twitter.com/eci6j4LeUl

— Mametja Matome Elvis (@MametjaE) August 13, 2020

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.