Johannesburg - ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa must go. This is the call from Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) spokesperson Carl Niehaus.
Niehaus planned exercise what he called his freedom of expression by urging Ramaphosa to resign from his position as ANC president, accusing him of bringing the ANC into disrepute and contributing to the country being in the bad state it’s in.
The ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting is currently in progress at Nasrec, south of Johannesburg. It’s the second day of the meeting.
The NEC meeting has been dominated by debates involving the Phala Phala money scandal and Ramaphosa’s election prospects.
Niehaus said: “Anything less than the ANC NEC meeting this weekend deciding that Ramaphosa must immediately step down as president of the ANC, will be a moral and political failure of epic proportions. It will be unforgivable and if that happens every single truly revolutionary member of the ANC will have to throw down the gauntlet and demand that the whole NEC together with Ramaphosa must resign immediately.”
Speaking to Independent Media on Saturday, Niehaus vowed to hold a one-man protest at the gates of Nasrec on Sunday at 10am, carrying a placard calling for Ramaphosa to go.
“Whoever wants to join me is welcome. But even if I have to be there alone, I will be there. This is the watershed moment! Now is the time to stand up and be counted,” Niehaus said.
“Ramaphosa must go he has brought not only the ANC but the country to disrepute not only through the Phala Phala scandal which is not only a national, but an international scandal which touches on issues of money laundering, illicit international finances, tax evision, abduction and torture... the whole range,” Niehaus said.
“The manner in which Ramaphosa became president of the ANC in 2017, he bought the votes in Nasrec at his own acknowledgement, he used millions of rands in order to gain the presidency, he even acknowledged that at the Zondo State Capture Commission, although he disagreed with the money he spent. He said he spent R350 million but according to our calculations he spent (a) billion. Beyond that Ramaphosa is plunging this country into economic disaster. Under him, international debt has reached unknown heights and he continues to call for us to take more loans.
“At the COP27 summit he allied for another 90 trillion dollars in order to go to the so-called green energy or renewable energy while we know throughout the world renewable has failed while we know South Africa has huge and sustainable coal deposits. Coal should have a significant part of our energy security mix. Ramaphosa is destroying the economy through his continuation of new liberal economic policies,” Niehaus said.
He said at the last State of the Nation Address, the DA even said that he read a speech which was the same as their election manifesto and economic policy program.
“Now the consequences of this disaster that Ramaphosa is and the manner in which he is cooperating with white monopoly capital and imperialism is the deepening of divisions between rich and poor, the destruction of state-owned enterprises, increased petrol (costs), load shedding and the destruction of Eskom, and most recently the final straw is Ramaphosa’s decision together with finance minister Enoch Gondongwana to lift black economic empowerment and to bring an end in employment equity, Ramaphosa does not care for Africans and we cannot allow him to stay in power for one day longer,” Niehaus said.