SACP at war with Naspers‚ DA

A war is brewing between media group Naspers and the South African Communist Party‚ with the DA being accused of being on the side of Naspers.

A report in the media group’s City Press newspaper on the weekend came on the same day that the SACP held a rally in Mpumalanga partly in response to what it said was a “smear campaign and attacks that have emerged against its leaders” from Naspers.

The rally was part of the SACP’s Red October campaign‚ which is “calling for transformation of the financial sector and the media”‚ particularly Naspers.

City Press reported on Sunday that a “private training college – in which the investment wing of the SACP and the party’s treasurer have shares – has been awarded contracts worth R235 million from the National Skills Fund (NSF) and the country’s biggest sector education and training authority (Seta)”.

The report said that the SACP’s investment company‚ Masincazelane Investments‚ had been awarded “contracts worth R235 million from the NSF and the Services Sector Education and Training Authority (Sseta) since 2011".

Further‚ "Masincazelane Investments is a shareholder in LHR Solutions‚ a private training college doing business as Letsatsi".

It said the “contracts were awarded since 2009‚ when SACP leader Blade Nzimande was appointed higher education and training minister”‚ and that “Joyce Moloi-Moropa‚ an ANC MP who was also appointed SACP treasurer in 2012‚ owns shares worth R800 000 in Letsatsi‚ according to the parliamentary register of members’ interests”.

It further stated that Moloi-Moropa is “a shareholder in‚ and director” of Masincazelane Investments”

On Monday the Young Communist League of South Africa issued a statement saying “we have noted that in reaction to the (Red October) campaign the Naspers monopoly through its Media24 is out to tarnish the image of SACP General Secretary Comrade Blade Nzimande and other leaders of the Party including the current ANC MP and Chairperson of the Parliamentary Communications Portfolio Committee Comrade Joyce Moloi-Moropa who is SACP National Treasurer”.

The league said: “Naspers' Media24 titles Die Rapport and City Press and its digital news platform News24 are being used to push this anti-communist smear campaign which is also part of Naspers' 2017 media coverage strategy.

“The YCLSA rejects the contents especially the lies peddled by Die Rapport and also published by Media24 through the City Press and other propaganda platforms aimed at tarnishing the image of SACP leaders and that of the Party as a whole which borders on defamation.”

The league accused the media group of propping up apartheid before 1994 and of conspiring with the Democratic Alliance to attack the SACP.

“Naspers was the ideological mouthpiece of apartheid which it served as a propaganda vanguard. As the YCLSA we will not allow Naspers to take our country back.”

It added that “we are also aware that Naspers is collaborating with parties such as the DA which is in its essential content a party of white privilege … Some of the questions that Naspers through its Media24 titles has asked the SACP and SACP General Secretary Cde Blade Nzimande as the Minister of Higher Education and Training were later asked by the DA in Parliament.

“The YCLSA will stand up to the task of confronting this axis of apartheid and white privilege and its hidden conspirators without fail.”

TMG Digital.