Speeches

Leadership of the movement gathered here today

Cde SG, Fikile Mabula
Cde Sophie de Bruyn
Family of Cde Pravin
Friends and comrades

We have come here to pay tribute to Pravin Gordhan, an extraordinary activist, ANC leader, public servant, servant leader, and movement veteran.

Over the last week, many tributes have been paid to Cde Pravin, detailing his many contributions as a soldier, political and community activist, government minister, anti-corruption warrior, and bureaucrat.

This afternoon  I do not want to repeat what we have heard and the stories others have told most movingly at his funeral, other memorials and written tributes.  I wish instead to focus on what we do as members of the ANC and society to carry on his legacy.

To do justice to and continue the struggle of Cde Pravin and those who stood beside him since the 1980s and again during the state capture era, I believe we need to recommit ourselves to integrity and fight corruption, to public service, to renewing the ANC, to resetting society, and to peace in the world.

The Veterans League has just released its programme for renewal of the ANC,  and we are rolling out workshops across the country.  We believe its renewal or death – the ANC is running out of time.

In our base document on renewal, we argue that the ANC is facing an existential crisis characterised by rampant corruption, resource-inspired factionalism, careerism and money politics – that the motive forces in the ANC are no longer the African people and working class but those bent on using the ANC to extract patronage opportunities. Cde PG despised and fought against this, most heroically and consistently in the form of State Capture.

As Cde Mac Maharaj reminded us at Cde PG’s funeral, he introduced, refined, and developed the concepts of Organize, Conscientise, and Mobilize. This is, comrade, what renewal should be about.

The ANC should return to these three words to honour and fulfil Cde Pravin’s legacy: Organise in strong ANC branches with adherence to the ANC Constitution. Conscientise through political education that goes beyond ticking boxes. Mobilise communities around service delivery issues to deliver democracy. By being responsive to communities, we should reverse our people’s disappointment in the ANC.

Friend and comrade Mncedisi Jonas warned at PGs funeral that we should not talk of renewal on the one hand and regurgitate old politics on the other.  We in the Veterans League have been wary of this and have made our position clear that there can be no renewal of the ANC unless the leadership of the ANC takes decisive action against those who have brought the organisation into disrepute.  As the ANCVL we are saying that it cannot right that those implicated in State Capture and other cases of alleged corruption and malfeasance are still in parliament wating to be criminally  charged by the law enforcement agencies.

The ANC’s public representatives should have impeccable credentials .The integrity of the ANC’s  public representatives in Parliament and Provincial Legislatures  is sacrosanct. Hence we are saying that the ANC Step Aside policy must be reviewed at the next ANC’s National General Council.

The e-Thekwini-based, 1860 Heritage Centre posted on Facebook yesterday how they took the youngest generation amongst them to pay tribute to Pravin Gordhan at his former place of residence at 116 Prince Edward Street, now Dr Goonam Street.  They say that sites like these, and there are many others throughout the country – Freedom Square in Kliptown ( which was vandalised in front of our eyes but currently waiting to being renovated at high costs)and Mitchells Plain in Cape Town  – which are sites of conscience that should constantly remind us of the legacy of our fallen heroes.  However, they remind us, and I quote: “ It is the younger generation who we must turn to in picking up the baton to help us remember our struggle sites of conscience and build a society that Pravin Gordhan will be proud to call home.”

We, as the Veterans League, are playing a leading role in the renewal of the ANC. Still, we call on the younger generations, with your energies and vibrancies, to take this challenge forward – the renewal of the ANC, the resetting of society, the fight against corruption and the redirection of the public service.

Let me now turn to Cde Pravin as a public servant, both as the head of SARS and in his various Ministerial roles.  He showed us what public service is about and it is possible that in his mind, he built on and adapted the concept of Organise, Conscientise and Mobilise.  Cde Pravin Organise SARS to become one of the most efficient tax-collecting agencies in the world. He Conscientised citizens on the imperative to be pay tax.  And then mobilised both through the courts (and inside and outside the ANC with bravery and determination) against those who sought to capture our country.  He also mobilised and deployed human and financial resources to better the lives of the people in this country.

Much hangs on the success of the recently elected Government of National Unity. And it can’t succeed without a capacitated and effective state.  Cde Pravin has left a legacy and lessons in this regard.

As we meet this afternoon, we can’t help but reflect on what is happening in the Middle East. We can only be horrified by the recent attack in Lebanon, where the Israeli fascist government turned an everyday object, a  pager, into a weapon of mass destruction.  I understand the pagers were programmed to beep before exploding to ensure the “targets” were holding the device up to look at it!

This wanton violence is a product of a world where we can’t appreciate the difference, where the imperatives of the military-industrial complex of the West are predominant over human rights so that millions of peace-loving citizens of the world become weaponised.  The actions of Israel and its allies need to be condemned.

But the events of the world are a warning and a message to us. Led by comrades like Pravin Gordhan, we achieved relative peace and harmony in South Africa in the 1990s. Let us not squander what we have achieved. To honour him, let us recommit to non-racialism non-sexism, and appreciating our diversity as we celebrate Heritage Month.

I thank you.

Snuki Zikalala, ANC Veterans League President

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