Members of the BLF picketing outside the Department of Public Works against what they say is white monopoly capital corruption. Picture: Thobile Mathonsi /African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria - A handful of Black First Land First (BLF) members staged a picket outside the Department of Public Works in the Pretoria CBD yesterday to register a complaint against what they titled “white monopoly capital corruption”.
The picket centred on businessman Jan du Plessis, who allegedly owns SKG Africa that leases property to government departments across the country.
The BLF accuses Du Plessis of hogging all the wealth by owning all the buildings as one “white person” benefiting more than R900 million worth of tenders while making sure that black people were sidelined and unable to do business regarding accommodation.
Chanting the once popular Struggle song “One settler, one bullet”, BLF president Andile Mngxitama, said the picket was to launch a fight against “white monopoly capital corruption”.
“White people steal! But they keep saying black people are corrupt.
“They are accusing former president Jacob Zuma and Dudu Myeni, former SAA board chairperson, and others but not white people stealing a lot of money. People like Marcus Jooste are not being persecuted (sic).”
Mngxitama also accused political parties of being bought by “white corrupt people” so that they can say it is the black people who are corrupt while whites are worse.
He said the reason the party was protesting outside Public Works was because it rented out accommodation to all government departments.
“There is this white person called Jan du Plessis who owns SKG Africa who has captured this department while black people are sidelined..
“We have evidence of the corruption in PE where this company SKJ Africa had tenders that they would give Home Affairs offices and parking base space. They pay R11 000 every month for a parking bay that is not accessible to the government. This is from 2018. You can imagine how much that is now. They do that all the time. They have a contract and then inflate it … And they can do that because they control Public Works.”
Acting director-general Dr Alec Moemi accepted the complaint from the party, confirmed that SKG Africa was a service provider of the department and under investigation by the SIU.
Mngxitama added: “Dr Moemi acknowledged the complaint of BLF against SKG Afrika and updated BLF on the anti-corruption initiatives of Public Works. The director-general also reported that SKG Afrika was one of the service providers under investigation by the SIU.”
He said the party was informed on steps taken to ensure SKG Africa was transformed since it was one of the department’s biggest service providers.
The Pretoria News contacted Lebo Ramela from the office of the acting director-general who could not respond by the time of publication. Efforts to contact SKG Africa were fruitless.
Pretoria News