The Workers´ and Socialist Party (WASP) on thursday last week announced Moses Mayekiso as their Presidential candidate (@ bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2014/03/13/wasp-announces-moses-mayekiso-as-presidential-candidate). Now I, and others, have a problem with this as it is clear that Cmde Mayekiso was intimately involved in the DIRTIEST DEAL of the Mbeki Era, the Arms Deal (for a summary and early outline - but NOT all the FACTS), see my review in 2009: The arms deal: Ten years on, Selim Gool, 13 August 2009, @ politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71639?oid=139501&sn=Detail Here is Terry Bell on this subject: Some clarity - and more arms deal murk, @ groundup.org.za/content/some-clarity-and-more-arms-deal-murk - Former trade union leader and parliamentarian Moses Mayekiso acknowledges that he, as the head of the SA National Civics Organisation (Sanco) in 1999, signed an agreement supporting the purchase of Gripen fighter jets from Saab in Sweden and its British partner, BAe. Peter Dantjie, then acting general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) added his name.... Mayekiso maintains that he has never been involved in any business dealings in Sweden with Valfridsson. Informed that the TV4 arms deal investigation had linked his name to possible corruption, Mayekiso agreed to be interviewed. He maintains that neither he nor Dantjie saw anything wrong in signing an agreement that committed their organisations to support the purchase of Gripen aircraft in exchange for the establishment of a R10 million industrial training school .. (which NEVER materialised, as it was part of the offset scam that was signed into effect by then Finance Minister Manuel).** At the time, the ANC issued a press statement noting that the two organisations supported the purchase of the Gripen aircraft as part of the arms deal. However, members of the Numsa executive maintained that they had not been consulted and the union still opposed the arms deal. He (MM) adds that “the ANC had already decided on the arms deal so we saw nothing wrong in supporting the Gripen in exchange for an industrial training school that we thought we needed.” He also felt at the time that the choice of the Gripen was a matter of repaying the solidarity shown by the Swedish government and trade unions for both the South African unions and the anti-apartheid struggle *. The agreement was a “quid pro quo”. However, according to arms deal campaigners Andrew Feinstein and Terry Crawford- Browne, support from Numsa and Sanco was probably crucial in getting the deal done. They point out that, at the time, the ANC faced internal pressure to pull out of the arms deal, and the South African Air Force had rejected the Gripen as unsuitable. Crawford-Browne and the TV4 team also raise the question of perhaps more than R35 million rand that was apparently paid in bribes by both Saab and BAe and that was possibly channelled through trade unions. That Moses Mayekiso, the celebrated founder of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), has had a checquered political past is known to all and sundry. But when he went over to COPE he was vilified .... by the ANC. Mayekisos crime was to announce his support for the Congress of People, the breakaway grouping from the African National Congress (and the SACP) formed by the former Defence Minister and ANC chairman, Mosiuoa Lekota, and the former premier of Gauteng province, Mbhazima Shilowa. The then Numsa executive emulated Stalin by effacing the name of Moses Mayekiso from one of the unions most celebrated buildings, the Moses Mayekiso Conference Centre in Johannesburg in 2008. In response, South African Communist Party comrades in the Numsa executive indicated their own disgrace subsequently, by draping a black cloth across the name of Mayekiso at the front of the building, sited at the corner of Gerard Sekoto and Bree Streets, about 150 metres from the Market Theatre. As reported in Business Times (9 November 2008), Numsas executive voted to change the name of the Mayekiso Centre in line with Cosatus position that its unions should not be seen adopting the name of a sell-out - its reference both to their former leader and to the new party. According to Mziwakhe Hlangani, spokesperson for Numsa, Mayekiso, who is joining the new party, is no longer part of Numsa. Numsa will involve its members in coming up with a new name, but in the meantime there is a black cloth around the Numsa building, also named after Mayekiso. Black symbolises that the union is mourning his departure from the ANC. WASP should DEMAND that Moses Mayekiso come clean about his involvement in the above Arms Deal fraud, via SANCO and as a ANC MP, before they endorse his candidature! And what do the rank and file members of WASP think? Do they support this action? Was it ever put to a democratic vote?
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 15:48:25 +0000
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