Mabuza backs Ramaphosa’s anti-corruption drive

Deputy President David Mabuza said the ruling party must rid itself of corrupt members, throwing his weight behind the party’s anti-graft drive.

The ruling African National Congress party’s leaders must back President Cyril Ramaphosa’s anti-graft stance, his deputy said in an open letter published in the Sunday Times. South Africa’s governing party need to “draw the line in the sand against corruption,” Mabuza wrote.

“The perception that we are corrupt is as real and severe as the prevailing onslaught on the image of the ANC,” Mabuza said.

Ramaphosa last month said corruption in Africa’s most industrialised economy had become endemic in the 108-year-old party that led the fight against white-minority rule and has held power since the country’s first multi-racial elections in 1994. Graft flourished during the nine-year rule of Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, and government estimates that more than R500 billion was probably looted from state coffers during the period.

Currently the government is probing suspect fraudulent contracts worth more than 5 billion rand for goods and services to tackle the Covid-19 epidemic.

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