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President Jacob Zuma’s announcement of free education is unrealistic because there is no money to fund it, SA Communist Party (SACP) leader Blade Nzimande said on Saturday.
He wanted answers about where the money would come from, as Zuma was simultaneously pushing ahead with a nuclear deal with Russia.
Zuma was taking from the poor to fund the poor, he said.
“We are not against free education, but we are not going to allow the increase of debt and an increase to VAT and the raiding of the PIC and the UIF to fund education. That is corruption and stealing from the poor.”
However, he said he was fighting old battles.
“I am not crying for my old job,” he said, referring to his stint as higher education minister. Zuma sacked him in a Cabinet reshuffle in October last year.
Nzimande was speaking at the Avalon Cemetery in Soweto, at the commemoration of the death of former SACP leader Joe Slovo. Slovo served on the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC).
Nzimande used his speech to make startling claims of a plot to drag him and other SACP leaders to jail.
He said this targeting of communists would end bitterly, with the destruction of the ANC.
“We know of attempts to discredit us and throw us into jail. There are those that want us to accompany them into jail.”
Nzimande alluded to how Zuma and others were protecting the Guptas by blaming the country’s problems on imperialism and regime change agendas.
He supported a view by newly elected ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe that nothing would be off limits for discussion at NEC meetings.
This was possibly an indirect reference to his discussions about removing Zuma as president.
Mantashe had asked for the ANC to be given space to resolve its problems.
To this, Nzimande responded: “We will give you space to do your work, but guide against decisions taken by the ANC that undermine its integrity and dent its image.”
Nzimande was critical of how Zuma was easily dictated to by close allies he had appointed into key positions.
“I miss Madiba, because he would have stopped anyone trying to get him to appoint someone.”
Nzimande was one of many SACP leaders who were left off the ANC’s NEC for the first time in many years.
He downplayed this, saying they accepted the outcome of the ANC’s elective conference in December.
“What concerns us is the ANC digging itself into a hellhole by isolating the SACP.”
Nzimande said the alliance between the SACP, ANC and Congress of SA Trade Unions was important, but outdated and had to be reconfigured.
“We don’t want positions when we say that, but have an interest in how state power is exercised.”
He said the SACP had a right to have a say in all ANC decisions, including appointments, because the party campaigned for the ANC during elections.
“We need to ask ourselves what are the threats to 2019 elections? That will determine what we do. We must minimise the risk of losing as a party and as a movement.”
The party scored a victory against the ANC by winning three seats in a by-election in the Free State’s Metsimaholo Local Municipality in November last year. It got its own mayor after forming a coalition with the ANC and smaller parties.
Gauteng SACP secretary Jacob Mamabolo lauded this power grab.
“Metsimaholo is our Soviet Union. It might have collapsed, but in Metsimaholo, the Soviet Union lives,” he said.
This was met with approval from the crowd of SACP and ANC supporters.
