SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande says the "toxic" role of the Gupta family needs to be "confronted" and that the Gupta emails appear to be genuine. The SACP addressed the media after the party's central committee meeting in Johannesburg on Sunday. The SACP has called previously for President Jacob Zuma to step down.
According to IOL, Nzimande told reporters:
"No one has come out in the open and said the emails were false... that is very interesting. Furthermore, no action has been taken against the media that has been reporting about these emails. We suppose that there would be processes to establish their nature, but they do look genuine...
"The toxic role of the Gupta family, with help from the highest echelons in the state and our movement, need to be confronted head on. We do not want any dilly-dallying and talk endlessly... we can't be fooling around now when the country is faced with a potentially serious problem that threatens to take us backwards."
SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin reportedly said there were cases that could be pursued criminally before the establishment of a judicial commission.
Nzimande called for a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture to be established immediately, according to The Sowetan.
"In the light of the barrage of further revelations concerning the Gupta network, the commission needs clearly to extend its scope beyond the major but still limited issues investigated in the public protector's State of Capture report."
However, Nzimande warned against "diluting" the commission.
"But we must vigorously guard against recent attempts to dilute it into investigating such a wide field that its work will never be completed," he reportedly said.
"Every week‚ in fact almost every day now, with a barrage of leaked emails and more and more whistleblowers coming forward to the SA Council of Churches unburdening panel‚ the sheer scale of corporate capture and of parasitic plundering of public resources by the Gupta network becomes more and more evident," he said.