ANCWL slams media for “smear campaign” against minister who bankrupted her dept.

A report by the City Press over the weekend claimed minister Nomvula Mokonyane’s department of water and sanitation is bankrupt, struggling with around R4.3 billion worth of toxic debt.

Mokonyane, a fierce Zuma loyalist and parliamentary firebrand, heads up one of the country’s most important departments as things currently stand, in lieu of the crippling drought we’re facing.

Read: Mokonyane’s department of water and sanitation bankrupt. Report

Following the news of her department’s woes, the ANC Women’s League came to the minister’s defense, labeling it a “smear campaign by some media houses” fueled by “white monopoly capital.”

Read: ANC Women’s League roasted for only acknowledging Kwezi after her death

The Women’s League seems to be labouring under the impression that Mokonyane has fallen victim to her own success — if by success hey mean bankrupting one of government’s key departments — and that it’s a campaign aimed at discrediting her.

Read the League’s full statement here:

12 February 2017

THE ANCWL STATEMENT ON THE POLITICAL SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST CDE NOMVULA MOKONYANE BY SOME  MEDIA HOUSES

The African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) has noted with great dismay the character assassination media reports directed at ANCWL member and ANC NEC member Cde Nomvula Mokonyane.

The smear campaign tactics of the monopoly capital and patriarchist using the neo-liberal media to attack Cde Nomvula is a calculated move to discredit black women in the mass democratic movement and society at large. The vicious character assassination campaign unleashed by these fanatics of patriarchy  and racism is driven by hatred towards black women who have earned their stripes to lead in various sectors of society.

No amount of smear campaign will erase the fact that cde Nomvula has served the people of Gauteng Province with distinction in various capacities. She had served as the MEC of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, the MEC for Safety and Liaison and was appointed as the Housing MEC respectively. By far Cde Nomvula, now serving as the Minister of Water and Sanitation is the only black woman to have led the Gauteng Province as a Premier.

Cde Nomvula is a seasoned politician who served in various leadership capacities in the ANC and its Alliance partners. She is currently serving as an ANC NEC member chairing the elections committee, a member of ANC NEC deployed in KZN Province. The attackers of this dedicated cadre of our movement who serves as a member of the ANC NWC are trying all the tricks to subvert the liberation credentials of our cadre through uninformed and distorted narrative.

The peddlers of the malicious, discrediting, unfactual and biased discourse are masters and stooges of the narrow capitalist interest that seeks to promote black inferiority and white superiority as an accepted social practice. This is based on patriarchal and racist principles aimed at discrediting black  women serving in high echelons of authority across all sectors in South Africa.

The ANCWL leadership collective and members including Cde Nomvula, will not be deterred from advancing the agenda of the ANC such us radical socio-economic transformation of our people. The ANCWL will take the drivers of anti black women leadership agenda head-on.

Issued by:
Meokgo Matuba
Secretary General of the ANCWL