S. African ruling party vows to intensify fight against state capture

CAPE TOWN, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The ruling African National Congress (ANC) vowed on Sunday to intensify its fight against state capture.

This came after the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC) ended its three-day meeting in Cape Town to discuss a wide range of issues, including organizational building and the fight against state capture.

In the context of an ongoing campaign to restore the integrity and dignity of the ANC, some members and leaders of the movement may find themselves called to account by law-enforcement agencies, the legislatures and the Judicial Commission of Inquiry dealing with the matter of state of captur, ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule said.

State Capture refers to looting from the state coffers by certain senior government officials in collaboration with the controversial Indian Gupta family. Former president Jacob Zuma is also embroiled in the scandal.

Magashule warned that individual members of the ANC and society have the right to express their sympathy and solidarity with the effected persons in their individual capacity, and not through any structures of the movement including the ANC Youth League, the ANC Women's League and the MKMVA, a military wing of the ANC.

He apparently was referring to some ANC members using the ANC's name to oppose the probe into state capture.

Members involved in such actions are discouraged from displaying ANC's paraphernalia thus creating the false impression that the ANC as organization identifies with, or approves of, the misdemeanors of which any member or leader may be accused, Magashule said.

He said the ANC welcomes the concerted efforts by the Executive led by President Cyril Ramaphosa as well as the Legislature to put the sad chapter of systemic corruption and state capture behind.

"We wish to emphasize that cadres of the movement, wherever they may be deployed, should see it as their responsibility to cooperate with these efforts; and not to seek to obstruct legitimate actions to eliminate these scourges," said Magashule.

He also reaffirmed the ANC's principled approach that persons so implicated should be presumed innocent until and unless proven otherwise. Enditem