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Pretoria – Crass displays of wealth and arrogance are among the problems facing the ruling alliance, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Wednesday.
There was growing social distance between the leadership and the people they were meant to serve, he told reporters during a briefing on the outcomes of a five-day summit of the ANC, SACP, Cosatu, and Sanco.
Money was being used to advance the interests of individuals and factions. Mantashe criticised what he called “corporate capture”, where leaders serve business interests.
“These deviations must be dealt with firmly and without fear or favour,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.
'Judicial overreach'
The summit expressed concern about the judiciary interfering with the executive and the legislature, in what Mantashe termed “judicial overreach”.
“There are already commonly expressed concerns that the judgments of certain regions and judges are consistently against the state, which creates an impression of negative bias,” Mantashe said.
He referred to two speeches by Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke. In one, which he gave at Georgetown University in the US in 2012, he expressed concern about “the tardiness of government institutions in implementing court orders promptly”.
In November 2014, Moseneke commented on the powers of the president to make appointments, saying: “This uncanny concentration of power is a matter which going forward we may ignore but only at our peril”.
Court ruling
Mantashe referred to the Western Cape High Court’s ruling on May 12, that the Speaker of Parliament may not have MPs arrested in the National Assembly. On February 12, EFF MPs were forcibly removed from the National Assembly ahead of President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation address.
Judge Andre le Grange ruled that section 11 of the Powers and Privileges Act “violates a member’s constitutional privilege to freedom of speech and freedom from arrest”.
“That is called over-reaching,” Mantashe said, referring to one arm of government wanting to determine the rules of another arm.
“That should be appealed and determined in the Constitutional Court.”
