Shivambu: ANC is led by cowards

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) deputy president Floyd Shivambu said in parliament today during National Treasury’s budget vote that the red berets did not support the department’s budget because the governing party, the ANC, had failed to address pressing issues within the financial sector.

Shivambu said the ANC had failed to deal with these issues because it was“defined by collective incapacity, negligence, mediocrity and cowardice”.

He named some of the issues as including Eskom’s debt to the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and the management of the power utility.

During his input on Treasury’s budget vote today, Shivambu suggested “the R110 billion which Eskom owes the PIC should be turned into equity”, following which the state must then address the effective management of the power utility.

The PIC earlier this year agreed to give Eskom a “bridging facility” after the utility had approached the corporation.

Eskom has been marred by allegations of corruption and state capture, leading to Parliament’s public enterprise’s committee establishing an inquiry into the affairs of the state-owned utility.

Opening his commentary on the budget, Shivambu said: “The collective incapacity, negligence, mediocrity and cowardice” of the governing party is reflected by the untransformed ownership patterns of the country’s financial services sector.

“The banks continued to be owned by those that did prior to 1994. The Reserve Bank has approved new licences of white-owned banks that are still existing,” the EFF deputy president said.

Shivambu said once in government following next year’s elections, the EFF would deal with the following issues, including Eskom’s debt to the PIC, when running National Treasury:

“We are going to make sure that the Banks Act, as we have already tabled the Amendment Bill, permits for the state to own banks. Currently, the legislative framework doesn’t allow the state to own banks. That is one issue that we must deal with as soon as possible.

“It is not just for the creation of the Post Bank into a fully fledged bank, but for other banks as well, including the Agricultural Support Bank, which will finance agrarian reform in light of the fact that we are going to expropriate land without compensation.

“The second issue which we have already tabled a Private Members Bill on is on discontinuing private ownership of the South African Reserve Bank because it is one of the seven in the world that has got private shareholders.

“We are going to make sure that the South African Reserve Bank is fully owned by the South African state,” Shivambu said.

The EFF deputy president added the South African Reserve Bank should immediately cease being a major shareholder of African Bank and that the ownership of the latter should be transferred to black owners and the state.

“We do not support the budget vote because we think that the ANC is led by cowards,” Shivambu said in closing.

– makhosandilez@citizen.co.za

For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.