ANC Women's League accuses Pityana of state capture

Cape Town – The African National Congress Women's League (ANCWL) has accused AngloGold Ashanti chairperson Sipho Pityana of state capture and trying to affect a coup d'état through monopoly capital.

In a statement on Friday, the ANCWL said it “has observed recent attempts of state capture by AngloGold Ashanti and Sibanye Gold”.

“The chairperson of AngloGold Ashanti Sipho Pityana and Sibanye Gold CEO Neal Froneman have been consistently raising the views of their companies, calling for the democratically elected state president of RSA to step down,” ANCWL secretary general Meokgo Matuba said.

“Any attempts by any facilitators of monopoly capital to have a coup d'état in South Africa must be exposed and rejected by patriotic loving South Africans.”

READ: Zuma is 'sponsor-in-chief of corruption' - Pityana

Pityana’s Save South Africa campaign requested an urgent meeting with Zuma on Thursday to discuss his capacity to provide “the leadership that is required to chart a way to stability, economic growth and the rights and promises contained in the Constitution”, Bloomberg reported.

“We suggest, Mr President that you have put your personal interests ahead of the national interest, jeopardising the independence of key institutions and you have consequently lost the confidence of the people of South Africa,” Save South Africa - which includes former finance minister Trevor Manuel - said in its statement. “The only honourable course of action open to you now is to resign.”

READ: Manuel tells Zuma to be honourable ... and quit

Pityana told a mining conference this week that Zuma was the “sponsor-in-chief of corruption".

"If the ANC keeps Zuma, then they endorse what he represents,” he said. “They will endorse the fact that he lacks integrity."

On Thursday, the Presidency said it is concerned with the “relentless public attacks” on Zuma.

“President Zuma values open dialogue and interaction with all sectors in our society. However, such dialogue is more helpful if it takes place within the bounds of human decency and decorum and upholds respect for key institutions and in our country,” it said.

READ: Business leaders must urge Zuma to go - Pitya

Sibanye CEO Neal Froneman told Bloomberg in September that Zuma “has to go.”

“Any solid investor, any solid company is founded on good governance and what we have in South Africa at the moment is very poor governance, from a government point of view,”  he said.

“There’s no doubt there’s incompetence,” Froneman told Bloomberg. “There’s corruption. And all of those things have to change.”

FULL STORY: Zuma ‘has to go’, says Sibanye CEO

On Friday, Matuba called on the Department of Mineral Resources to convene an urgent meeting with the majority shareholders of AngloGold Ashanti and Sibanye Gold to “clarify the process of electing and removing a state president in South Africa and warns them against their businesses of advocating for regime change in South Africa”.

“Should the views raised by chairperson (sic) of AngloGold Ashanti and CEO Sibanye Gold be their personal views, the shareholders of these companies must distance themselves from this opportunistic, demagoguery, populist and grandstanding and call this gate-keepers of capitalism, which is thriving through the blood and sweat of the poor and working class to order.

“Good relations between mining houses and government is of paramount importance in growing SA’s struggling economy, therefore no mining house must be fixated into a regime change agenda as if it's their licence to operate.”

READ: Pityana: Zuma's removal will boost the economy