The following is a transcript of the analysis by the Black First Land First President, Andile Mngxitama, on the main CR17 campaign donors and their relation to state capture which was live streamed on Facebook at 9h15 on 11 August 2019:
I great you all in the name of our father, Steven Bantu Biko. I promised that I’m going to try to make sense of the really crazy situation in South Africa today. We are inaundated by news, by revelations, and I don’t think that we quite have a way to handle this. I have three tasks which I want to carry out today. First it’s just to ask the question that is not being asked. Why did these white people actually pay for Ramaphosa? That is the question not being asked. I think we must start by acknowledging the work done by the journalists such as Piet Rampedi and Mzilikazi Wa Afrika.
They are doing excellent work but they are just giving us the details. They don’t have the kind of analysis that we must provide to answer the big question. They tell us what happened but they are not telling us why it happened. They are telling us that Ramaphosa was paid for. We know that it’s a billion rand. We know that there’s very powerful white interests that actually paid for his campaign. The question is why? Why did they pay for Ramaphosa and not pay for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (NDZ?
Why did they not give Black First Land First money to run in the elections? Why did they give Ramaphosa this money? What did they expect in return? Until we understand that, we are not going to understand why is it that Ramaphosa is being exposed in the manner that he is.
Just to take you back to December 2017, remember it’s the height for the contestation of the presidency in the African National Congress (ANC) and the battle is divided between two – those that want Radical Economic Transformation (RET) represented by the NDZ slate, and those who are for white monopoly capital (WMC) represented by Ramaphosa. There was a big fight. They started of by making sure that they get rid of ANN7 which was supporting the slate of RET. We will analyze now who donated money to the campaign and those who have been outed as is indicated in the Sunday Independent.
The slates were clear. RET on one side and WMC on the other side. WMC being those who own the means of production, those who own our banks, our mines, and our land, controls South Africa.
Johann Rupert was scared that NDZ or RET was going to win. So what they did was this. They got their money together and decided to support Ramaphosa so that he can buy the ANC Conference, and they can have their own President. Let’s be clear. On a basic level, the only reason why they supported Ramapahosa was to stop RET. Now they had a problem of how they do this. How do u bring so much money into the system to allow your man to buy a conference? How do you do that? How do you give money to your candidate to buy a conference so that he can become the President who listens to you? There is no mechanism. So what they did is that they set up all these trusts, right. They were all clandestine. It started with the question by the Democratic Alliance (DA) just asking on the R500 000, but they did not know how deep the problem goes.
Today, you and I know that Ramaphosa spent a billion rand – a billion rand on the ANC conference, doing what? I just want to say this, the reason they gave Ramaphosa this money was to make sure that he buys the ANC conference so that the project of WMC is defended by a President who is beholden to WMC. That is the big question. Whatever we say comrades, don’t get excited. It is not about them just being corrupt. No, they are not just being corrupt. WMC has a clear agenda and it was terrified that Zuma, having gone to RET, was going to affect the economic interests so they then brought in Ramaphosa. That’s why they gave him all that money. Let’s get that right. The money was given to Ramaphosa so that no change happens in this country and we know change has not happened.
Ok, so this week there were big revelations about this Ramaphosa corruption and his campaign. And I asked the question during the week. What will the Sunday papers say? I’ll just take the three main papers, the Sunday Times; the City Press; and the Sunday Independent. Despite the big news of the week, here’s what the Sunday Times says. The front page has the story about soccer, the total shutdown, and also off course the story of Miss South Africa. And then at the end they have the story about the white man Bacher, the soccer man. The point is, all of a sudden this newspaper is interested in soccer. This newspaper is owned by WMC. This paper was the one running the Gupta leaks. This newspaper was in the forefront saying Zuma is corrupt and Zuma Must Go. Today, there’s a revelation about Ramaphosa’s corruption and in the front page they talk about soccer. So that makes you understand that who owns the paper determines what it’s slant is.
Let’s look at another paper, the City Press. I don’t know if you saw that. The City Press is talking about the state going to crack down on migrants (on its front page). They are, all of a sudden, interested in migrants – not on the big story. And then they go on about how government officials are going to do this. I mean, that’s the City Press. Who owns the City Press? The City Press is owned by white people. It is owned specifically by Naspers and Naspers is that apartheid news agency which makes sure that it unites white people against us.
Now interestingly the only paper that dealt with the issue of corruption is the Sunday Independent. You have all seen in the Independent how the CR17 funds were channeled, right? I will not talk too much about who got money but I’ll talk about who contributed the money. In the Facebook picture that I posted, you would have seen there that Maria Ramos is circled. But let me talk about the Sunday Independent a little bit. Why is the Sunday Independent writing like this and Piet Rampedi is leading this story. The Sunday Independent is owned by Dr Iqbal Surve. It is not owned by WMC. It is owned by Dr Iqbal Surve. And WMC wants to actually take this paper away from him and they have failed. Now it explains also why this is the only paper that is able to go into some of these matters. This does not mean that these other papers will not try from time to time (to go into some of these matters). We must not be mistaken. They will try from time to time to change the narrative, to own the narrative. When the exposure is happening as big as this, they will write about it. Media 24 owns City Press, the paper that’s talking about migrants today. The guys who run and own this newspaper (Media 24) are the ones who wrote the book called the Stellenbosch Mafia. They are doing it because they want to own that narrative. Because if they don’t own it, people like Piet Rampedi will tell us the real story behind the Stellenbosch Mafia. So sometimes they also reveal stories – they also write stories. They do it so that the narrative does not damage these guys. Well, we’ll come back to what the papers said and revealed.
I’ll respond to some of your questions. Some of you inboxed me about the Black First Land First movement. Some of your questions are those of concern – questions about Black First Land First being a banned organization and are we allowed to operate in South Africa? What is the future? I will give a summary at the end.
Let’s analyze the 7 contributors to Cyril Ramaphosa. I hope you can see. We will deal with Nicky Oppenheimer, then the Sygnia Board guy, then Jonny Copelyn (eNCA), then Maria Ramos. We’ll talk about the guy from Pick n Pay. We’ll also talk about the former Imperial Holdings CEO Mark Lamberti, and then we’ll talk about the guy from Apen.
I’ve asked this question, why is there no call for Ramaphosa to go? Why is the EFF, which was at the forefront of Zuma Must Go, not calling for Ramaphosa to go? The evidence against Ramaphosa is overwhelming. And its not a tumbsuck. It doesn’t come from the emails. It comes from the decision of the Public Protector.
Ramaphosa was involved not just in buying that ANC conference, money laundering too was involved, probably also tax evasion. They did not tell us whether they paid tax on the gifts they gave Ramaphosa. So this is real criminal stuff. This is a mafia operation – how they bought the ANC conference. So we have a President today, who is an illegitimate President bought by WMC. But there’s no call for Ramaphosa to go – not from the EFF, the ANC, or all civil society organizations. Why is that? The answer is simple. The problem for the DA, the EFF, and the ANC is that Ramaphosa is a representative and a candidate of WMC which controls all of them. So they have a real difficulty. If they call for Ramaphosa to go, they will be offending their bosses. So that’s why they’re saying they are disappointed, he has no integrity. Then the EFF attacks a small part of this problem which is that Copelyn has given Ramaphosa R2 million and Copelyn is part owner of eNCA or eTV. Why was there no call for Ramaphosa to go.
If you look at the 7 contributors, the first guy is Nicky Oppenheimer. No one has raised the issue of Nicky Oppenheimer. Maria Ramos has donated a million rand, we know that already. She has been promoted twice and we know there’s a big thing about Maria Ramos and Absa and the money they stole from the people. Again why no mention of Nicky Oppenheimer. Nicky is the real problem.
Now let’s deal with each of these characters. How is this state capture? Let’s deal with Maria Ramos. Remember in 2015 December, after Zuma had removed Nene, they moved on the JSE, they removed R500 billion in 2 days. This forced President Zuma to employ Pravin Gordhan and remove van Rooyen – remember that? Maria Ramos was in the forefront. She was saying if you put van Rooyen as Minister of Finance they will loose power, they will loose interest. There is already evidence that Maria Ramos was in the forefront of trying to capture the state. Now she has been put on the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) board and the PIC has the trillions that belongs to the state. She paid money into this (CR17) campaign after the conference and then she gets promoted. It’s like when my friend Sandile Mamela gives me money and I then promote him to a government position. That will be a case of conflict of interest and clear corruption.
The shocking thing is the case of Absa which is implicated in the theft of money from our own Reserve Bank. DescriptionMaria Ramos is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Absa. She has come out to say that Absa must not pay back that money. So you can see it’s a clear case of state capture.
Moving to the eNCA owner, Johnny Copelyn. It’s just not Johnny Copelyn as the owner. eNCA is also owned by Johann Rupert. Copelyn and Rupert via eNCA killed ANN7 so that they can have monopoly over controlling our news and on what our people should know We all know that in destroying ANN7, eNCA was in the forefront of being helped by the EFF as usual and the DA. Also, it must be said that even without us having money and so on we would have had a better chance, if ANN7 was there when we were running in the past elections, More of our people would have known us and the corruption that happened in the polls would have been exposed. So this Copelyn guy – the media owner – pays Ramaphosa so that he can become President. That’s where the relation to state capture comes in.
Then there’s this board member of Sygnia, Andre Crawford-Brunt. He gave the campaign R2 million. The important thing is that it’s owner, DescriptionMagda Wierzycka is the richest woman in South Africa. Magda actually put aside R2 billion to bribe President Zuma to step down from office. She asked Zuma to leave office in exchange for the R2 billion. Not only that, she said to Zuma “well, I will also give you amnesty. Just leave Zuma, Leave.” She wanted Zuma to go because she was worried the Zuma through Radical Economic Transformation (RET) was going to affect her interests. We see now they paid R2 million into the CR17 campaign.
We are now analyzing the 7 that were exposed by Sunday Independent . Please also note that these 7 are not the total number of the sponsors to the campaign. The biggest sponsor is Nicky Oppenheimer. But we all know in the CR17 campaign accounts there’s about R500 million to R1 billion.
Raymond Ackerman, owner of Pick n Pay, paid R1 million to the campaign. And Ackerman’s contribution comes from off-course the old money. Some people are asking who funded the CR17 campaign? Its WMC. I’ve already answered the question as to why they funded the CR17 campaign – it was because they were part of the battle. The biggest political battle that was happening since 1994 was between NDZ and CR17. It was between Ramaphosa represented by WMC and the new project of RET represented by NDZ. This was the biggest battle. Yet those people who claimed to be revolutionaries were just playing games – they failed to take a position.
I want to now deal with Aspen. After this broadcast I’m going to post on my Facebook wall all the companies that Pravin Gordhan has shares in. Stavros Nicolaou, the Aspen Pharmacare director, they say donated about R150000 – but they are not of the exact amount. Aspen is the pharmaceutical company in which Pravin Gordhan has shares. This is not a secret. After Ramaphosa took over as President, Aspen got a pharmaceutical deal of about R18 billion from the Ramaphosa government. This is blatant stuff. It’s actually shocking. So Aspen sponsors Ramaphosa; it makes sure he becomes President; Ramaphosa subsequently gives it deals in the government where he is President. Not only that we know that Aspen is a company where Pravin Gordhan has got shares in. This means that Pravin Gordhan directly benefits from a company which has sponsored the President of the country to buy the ANC conference.
I want to conclude the discussion on Nicky Oppenheimer. He paid R10 million to the campaign. He was the biggest single contributor to the campaign. Here’s the interesting thing about Nicky Oppenheimer. He and his son, Johnathan, went to the ANC at Luthu House and told the house they want a private international airport. Remember that. And Luthuli House, not government, gave the Oppenheimers a private international airport of their own. As I speak to you right now, inside the OR Tambo international airport, is a private international airport owned by the Oppenheimers. And the same Oppenheimers have given money to the President to buy a conference. This was a thank you to the ANC for giving them this airport – not only that, that airport will be protected. That is why they have their own private international airport inside an international airport. They can do whatever they want. They can go to Kimberly to get diamonds. They can fly in their own aeroplanes wherever they want. They can bring guns and drugs into the country. Basically they have free access to move our resources and they can bring whatever they want into the country. And this they’ve done illegally. These are the people who have given money to Ramaphosa to become President. If there was a case of state capture, this is it. You can’t get worse that this situation. So these are the horrible guys who gave money to Ramaphosa.
And on the other side of the expose are the people who benefitted directly. I’m going to pick on just one of the beneficiaries, and maybe next week we can deal with the others – Enoch Godongwana. Enoch Godongwana they say got R400 000 for himself, from the billion rand.
Just to mention, there’s also a Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Thembi Siweya, who was paid R2.3 million. This woman worked for Ramaphosa for this campaign and he then appointed her Deputy Minister.
Coming back to Enoch Godongwana, he is the head of policy in the ANC. And you know what he has done even with the Nasrec conference resolutions. Those resolutions were radical. Then he takes them, he waters them down and he writes out the radical stuff. And all the time he reads out of the ANC conferences the radical content that the delegates give.
Now we know all this time Enoch Godongwana was working with WMC to make sure that the candidate of WMC, Cyril Ramaphosa, becomes President of the country. I mean the capture is deep. It is blatant. It is an insult. In fact you know I’m sitting here thinking – doesn’t the ANC have shame? Don’t members of the ANC have shame? All of you ANC members have voted for Ramaphosa, a man that has been bought by WMC; a man who answers to his bosses; and a man who today is saying “I don’t deny that these emails that have been leaked contain the truth but they are confidential. Why are you revealing confidential stuff?” He’s not saying “those those emails are lies. Those emails don’t reveal what happened”. He is saying “why are you revealing confidential stuff?” So if I want to be corrupt all I have to do is say it is confidential and nobody must reveal this stuff.
We are in the middle of a mafia state. We don’t have a President. We have a man who was bought by WMC. We have a man who answers to the Oppenheimers, and the Ruperts of this world – and off course Maria Ramos. I’m just raising this issue and asking, what must we do?
Yes, what must we do? You see comrades there are a lot of you who every time there’s a revelation of how corrupt Ramaphosa is, you celebrate as if that means anything. It means nothing. Let me repeat. The fact that Ramaphosa is bought, the fact that there are these revelations means nothing. It does not mean there’s going to be change of government. It does not mean Ramaphosa is going to stop being President. No, in fact they are just going to get more and more arrogant. You can see yourself that the EFF is terrified because it is controlled by the same people. It is controlled by Ramaphosa. The DA will not move against Ramaphosa because they are controlled by and stand for the same people who sponsored Ramaphosa Those who are worried like us, in the ANC, the leaders there – they don’t have the confidence to say Ramaphosa Must Go. That leaves us the ordinary people of this country to say Ramaphosa Must Go. In fact Black First Land First will lead that process. We are going to write to the ANC and the veterans and we will say Ramaphosa Must Go. We can’t have a man like this as the President of the country. We will have to bring protest to the ANC. We will have to take protest to parliament. We will insist that Ramaphosa reveals all the secrets about this money.
Ramaphosa is saying to the Court “please do not allow the Public Protector to reveal all the truth of what happened”. And I fear that the court is going to agree with him. They are going to say that Ramaphosa has a right to privacy and in that case the story about him is going to be killed. I’m saying let’s take this up ourselves. Let’s start a campaign. Let’s start petitions that says Ramaphosa Must Go. The ANC is not going to do it. The DA is not going to do it. The EFF is not going to do it. We as a nation have enough information today to know that this president is not our president. He is the president of Stellenbosch. He’s the president of white people. It is shocking It’s sad. That is why even for the unemployment problem Ramaphosa can’t say let’s place a moratorium on retrenchments. In other words, he can’t say to white capital “please do not retrench our people, our economy is in a bad state”. He can’t say that. He’s a captured man, he’s an abducted man – by the enemies of our people.
We are in a very sad situation and the media, at least that pert that is owned by white capital, is doing everything to minimize what Ramaphosa’s story is. Political parties including the EFF are minimizing what is happening in our country. A country has been bought by the money of the people that we need to expropriate. That’s why there’s no talk of Land Expropriation Without Compensation. How is that going to happen. How are we going to talk about Land Expropriation Without Compensation, when the President of the country is paid for by land thieves.
I just need to say to you that we will systematically go through those things that we need to do. But the message must be absolutely clear that we don’t have a president and that we need to mobilize society. They know that we don’t have the money. Unlike when they were busy with Zuma Must Go, they had the money, they had the media, and they had serious leaders within the ANC who were saying Zuma Must Go. We don’t have that advantage on this project. We don’t have the church. We don’t have civil society. We are on our own. As far as I know, the only organization that has come out clear without fear and says Ramaphosa Must Go, is Black First Land First.
Yes comrades that’s what we are. It’s sad, it’s very sad, it heartbreaking, it’s humiliating, but it’s the truth. We don’t have a President. We just don’t have a President. White people have bought your President. Some of us have asked if we are ready to fight.
What happened in Nasrec is that WMC was terrified that RET is coming, that NDZ might win. WMC was terrified that the RET forces will do Land Expropriation Without Compensation, they will nationalism the Reserve Bank, and they will have a state bank. Not only that, they will give free education, they will go into the mining charter which has already said 30% if the mines must belong to black people in 12 months. They stopped all that with money.
Some of you have asked what is the future of Black First Land First given that we are a banned organization. Some people are kneeling down there. The truth is hitting them so hard. They are going voetsek, whatever. That’s all right. We are going to educate you until you get it. We will save you from yourself.
Black First Land First is going to have a special conference to deal with the future of our movement. The discussion papers which have been written will be distributed to all of you to engage with. Supporters and members of Black First Land First will be invited to come to this conference where we will discuss the future of our movement.
Some of the options that we are obviously going to discuss include:
1. the possibility of in fact dissolving our movement, going underground and taking up an arm-struggle.
2. amending our constitution in such a way that we are still able to maintain a blacks only proposition whilst participating in the anti black process and contributing from the inside.
3. a synthesis of the first two propositions.
So a conference is coming in October 2019. I can assure you all, the indications are that Black First Land First will be on the ballot in 2021 because that is the biggest thing that our enemies fear. Black First Land First inside the system of white people is just too powerful because it will give a voice to our people which we currently don’t have. We will have to balance all these considerations and make sure that we give our people the voice that they deserve – a voice which is uncompromising, a voice which is clear, a voice which is going to push everybody.
Today in parliament both the EFF and the ANC can relax because there’s nobody saying to them “you are lying. You make promises to our people and you are not delivering. Where is the land? We know what you are doing is not what you promised”.
That voice does not exist and that his why the Freedom Front Plus is so worried that Black First Land First will go into parliament and be in full force to address the issues of our people. We are not a political party. We are a revolutionary movement.
Again comrades thank you for tuning in. And we will keep on updating you and our hope is that we can organize our thoughts about what is happening in our country and make sure that we don’t loose trail in the details that are coming up.
We are very grateful to the media that is doing its work, particularly the Independent. Big ups to our Brother Piet Rampedi; to Mzilikazi Wa Afrika; and to Karabo Ngoepe. They’ve done a great job. And we will follow them and each time we will try to give meaning, analysis, and perspective to the news. Thanks again for listening and for viewing.
We will talk soon again. Izwelethu! One settler, one bullet!
Ndinithanda nonke emakhaya. Enkosi!
Issued by Black First Land First, National Coordinating Committee of (BLF NCC)
16 August 2019