Durban - Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi says that in the wake of explosive allegations implicating senior members of the ANC, the tripartite alliance should always defend the organisation and individuals implicated should answer for themselves before the Zondo commission of inquiry.
Losi was in Durban on Friday addressing hundreds of the trade union’s members, its affiliates and alliance partners, the SACP and the ANC, as it prepares for a national strike in two weeks’ time.
She said the individuals implicated in state capture allegations have continued with the alleged corruption and those who want to answer for themselves should go to the Zondo commission and clear their names and not use other platforms such as social media to do so.
“We are going to the elections now, each man and woman who says that what (Angelo) Agrizzi is saying is nonsense should go to Zondo and say, ‘Judge Zondo I want to respond and give my side of the story and here is evidence against what Agrizzi is saying’,” said Losi.
She said Cosatu had embarked on a section 77 strike in September 2017 calling for a commission of inquiry into state capture and “the results are the Agrizzis of this world”.
Losi said that some comrades had appeared on ANC lists but now find themselves appearing on Agrizzi’s list and that this was a result of corruption that had taken place for a long time.
“We can’t disband that process (Zondo commission) just because of the implication of our comrades who we may have been campaigning with ahead of the Nasrec conference. We are saying each person must now face their skeletons.
“Each man and woman should carry their bag of skeletons because they made those skeletons alone and we don’t know anything about them and we must be able, comrades, to insulate the movement from corruption.
ANC acting national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa recently said that individuals should account for themselves as they were not sent by the ANC to engage in corrupt dealings and should face the music alone.
Kodwa said that it did not mean that what those who are implicated were acting on behalf of the ANC.
Losi said that the commission should not only be focused on the public sector and also be focused on corruption in the private sector.
“We are told that the GEPF (Government Employees Pension Fund) R4.3 billion in Steinhoff has been written off as worthless.
“This is happening because the so-called accounting scandal, it is given certain names when it is being done by whites, by the Steinhoff fraudsters and criminals who wiped off more than R200bn of the company’s value.
“They say it is worthless and written off and it means that those workers’ money is gone, this is what it means. It means workers have lost their pension money,” Losi said.
She added that in South Africa big companies collude and act like cartels, but they were only charged 10%of their profits and then everybody moves on with life.