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Cape Town - The leader of the United Democratic Movement, General Bantu Holomisa, on Monday called on big business to defy the practice of patronage, and to stop being accomplices in the practice of awarding deals on the basis of people's political connections.
"They have known that what they were doing was wrong, but continued for the sake of getting approval for big deals and contracts," Holomisa said.
"Now the chickens have come home to roost because the politically connected cadre of yesterday is no longer the politically connected cadre of today."
Holomisa also urged the ANC to clean up its own house and institute action against everybody who had abused BEE to enrich themselves. "It must also come clean on all the convenient funding it has received in the process," he said. "What we have seen is the creation of a network of deployed cadres who channel funding towards the ANC."
He said if the ANC was serious about ending this corrupt practice it must do so wholesale, not just target select individuals who had fallen out of favour with the new leadership.
Business leaders must have courage
"Unfortunately we know that the Public Protector cannot be expected to expose this matter," he said, "because the current incumbent is also a deployed cadre."
The former military dictator of the Transkei said the public would judge big business on whether they would perpetuate this institutionalised corruption.
"They are the ones who in private and in confidential surveys will complain about corruption in this country and cause South Africa to be badly rated on the grounds of corruption. Yet they have been complicit."
He urged business leaders to demonstrate the courage now to defy the expectation of kickbacks to the ruling party.
"If they feel victimised for their principled stance," he said, "there is always parliament and the courts to provide them with protection and recourse."