PARLIAMENT, May 3 (ANA) – Parliament and the ANC on Wednesday condemned a verbal outburst by Andile Mngxitama, the leader of the pro-Zuma lobby group Black First Land First, which brought him and Yunus Carrim, the chairman of the standing committee on finance, close to trading blows in public hearings on the transformation of the financial sector.
In a ten-minute presentation, Mngxitama attacked white-controlled big business, defended the Gupta family against corruption claims, and demanded a judicial inquiry into banks.
The former Economic Freedom Fighters MP became agitated when the co-chair of the hearings, trade and industry chairwoman Joan Fubbs cautioned him that he had limited time to speak and complained that this was “fascist”.
Fubbs did not appear to take offence but Carrim shouted at Mngxitama to leave the meeting.
“I have the utmost contempt for what Andile has said about Joan,” Carrim said before getting out of his seat, walking to where Mngxitama was sitting and ordering him: “Go, just go.”
Members of Black First Land First left their seats to put themselves between Carrim and their leader and the delegation then left the Good Hope Chamber. Outside, Mngxitama said he had not applied the term fascist to Fubbs but to her handling of the meeting.
“Obviously I was taken out of context. I had told her it was fascist of her, not that she was fascist, and she was cool with that and we moved on. But now he’s being fascist to behave like that.”
But Parliament said he was verbally abusive and had aimed to disrupt rather than contribute to a discourse.
“Parliament deplores Mr Mngxitama’s appalling behaviour, flagrantly in breach of the open and democratic culture of engagement which Parliament seeks to promote at all times. Seemingly, Mr Mngxitama came to have a showdown, rather than to engage the committees at their joint meeting.”
The office of African National Congress chief whip Jackson Mthembu said: “We find this behaviour extremely unacceptable and view it with the utmost disdain. This kind of behaviour is a regrettable sign of the immature and scatterbrain nature of this organisation.”
During the hearings, Carrim and Mngxitama had sparred verbally over the implications of BFLF’s contention that white monopoly capital controlled the means of production and therefore the post-apartheid economy.
Mngxitama insisted that 90 percent of the companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange should be in black hands, touching on a highly politicised subject that sees figures routinely disputed.
President Jacob Zuma claims only three percent of the shares on the JSE is black-owned while the exchange itself puts black ownership of its top 100 listed companies at 23 percent.
In a presentation to the hearings on Wednesday, JSE CEO Nicky Newton-King spoke of the difficulty of determining black share-holding when national legislation did not require companies to declare the race of members, and urged politicians to encourage growth through policy certainty.
Carrim twice asked Mngxitama whether it would be more acceptable to him if black monopoly capital dominated the economy.
“Is the challenge not the notion of monopoly itself?” he asked. “Should you not de-sloganise and give us something a little more concrete?”
Mngxitama dismissed his remark as disingenuous.
“You are trying to delegitimise the struggle against white monopoly capital,” he retorted.
Carrim also objected to Mngxitama saying that former finance minister Pravin Gordhan, who was fired at the end of March, had blocked economic transformation.
“I find it crass and not relevant to the issue,” Carrim said.
Mngxitama defended Zuma as having the only viable idea on transforming the economy by calling for the “expropriation of white monopoly”, and said slurs against the President or the Guptas were a case of cheap moralising.
He called banks “criminal agents”, and said an investigation should be held to put paid to suggestions that the Guptas operated outside the law.
Mngxitama also came to the defence of Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s controversial special adviser, Chris Malikane, saying he was vilified purely for opposing the dominance of white monopoly capital.
“Let us support President Zuma … President Zuma is making the kind of move we need to push this society forward.”
He drew sniggers from ANC MPs, with one muttering “you are paid by the Guptas” as he walked past Mngxitama. The Democratic Alliance’s finance spokesman David Maynier echoed the sentiment.
“The Guptas’s foot soldiers, the BLBF movement, came here with ANN7 in tow, to provoke with their so-called Malikane proposals. And they got exactly what they wanted. All it will really achieve is five minutes of fame on ANN7,” he said.
– African News Agency (ANA)
