TRIBUTE BY GAUTENG PREMIERDAVID MAKHURA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE SPECIAL SITTING OF THE GAUTENG LEGISLATURE TO PAY TRIBUTE TO THE LATE HONOURABLE SIPHO MAKAMA

20 April 2017

Madame Speaker

Deputy Speaker

Chief Whip

Members of the Executive Council

Honourable Members

Leaders of political parties

Members of the Makama Family

Comrades and Compatriots:

I rise on this sad occasion of the special sitting of our Provincial Legislature to pay tribute to a distinguished Member of this House, Honourable Sipho Makama who departed our world on Easter Sunday.

Comrade Sipho Makama served the people of Gauteng and the youth of our country with utmost commitment, honour and a great deal of passion as an all-round youth and student activist and a dedicated and honest public representative. It is therefore proper that we bid him a fitting farewell.

Comrade Sipho Makama was part of that fearless generation of youth and student activists who were the shock troopers of the mass struggles that brought the apartheid regime to the negotiating table. These are fire eaters and death defiers of Peter Mokaba and RapuMolekane- Izidlamlilo.

This is the brave and militant generation of youth who were christened by Oliver Tambo as the "Young Lions" whose single-minded mission was to render South Africa ungovernable and make apartheid unworkable. I am talking of those who were not peacetime heroes or quasi militants. I am talking of a truly radical youth who faced apartheid military power with everything they could lay their hands on.

Having started his activism at the tender age of 15, he served the cause of the people with characteristic consistency, passionate thoughtfulness and impeccable integrity in the structures of the mass democratic movement such as COSAS, the UDF, ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe underground machinery, Soweto Youth Congress, South African National Students and later the ANC Youth League.

He was a truly honourable member of this Legislature for more than 16 years. As a public representative, he will be remembered as a passion and unfailing honesty. He was a firm believer in public accountability and the oversight role of the Legislature.

As the ANC Caucus, we shallremember him for his insistence that ANC parliamentarians must master the art of being the best voice of their constituencies and communities, while at the same time being accountable to the party. He believed there was no contradiction between these two.

He was a fearless enforcer of public accountability and clean governance. As the Chairperson of SCOPA, he distinguished himself as an ANC member who demonstrated that ANC parliamentarians can be the custodians of public interest, while at the same time maintaining party discipline because the ANC was founded to serve the people loyally. Accordingly, he fought pitched battles publicly with MECs and Departments that were less accountable and imprudent with the management of public finances.

Comrade Makamawas a shining example of ANC cadres who are genuinely committed to fight corruption and promote accountable, clean and competent governance. When it came to anything that undermined the integrity and standing of the ANC in society, he was uncompromising. Throughout his youth activism and as a public representative, he was both incorruptible and “uncapturable”. He was a man of honour in the true sense of the word. He always fought against vested interest in favour of public interest. Sometimes we call each other "Honourable Members" too loosely, when there may be nothing honourable about our conduct. HonourableMakama was indeed honourable.

Comrade Sipho Makama represents a generation of ANC cadres who understood that to be a true cadre you must be a loyal, competent, incorruptible and “uncapturable” servant of the people of South Africa.

I would like to reassert that to stand up against corruption, state capture, mismanagement of public resources and mis-governance wherever it manifests itself is to be a true cadre of the ANC. Those who want to caricature the ANC otherwise are either plainly wrong or simply dishonest.

As a Member of this Legislature, HonourableSipho Makama understood the absolute importance of integrity and accountability on the part of public representatives. His outstanding work in this Legislature gave practical meaning to the mantra of this House:"Your Voice – the People’s Voice – Our Mission!"

Comrade Makama leaves us in a month of April, the month of our freedom and a month in which we mark the passing of great leaders of our people who were visionary, courageous and incorruptible - Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani and Solomon Mahlangu. He joins a list of ANC members who served the people of our country with distinction and honour, because he never brought shame to his family or to the ANC.

Through the consistent and disciplined implementation of our programme for radical Transformation, Modernisation and Reindustrialisation, we will continue to work for the dream of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa in which all our people live together in peace and harmony as equals, united in diversity.

We will also continue to work hard in promoting, in practice, an accountable, responsive, clean and competent government in Gauteng province.

We will continue to dedicate ourselves to the cause more noble and far greater than our own personal pursuits: the fundamental transformation of our country in line with the vision and values espoused in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution of our country.

With the same determination, commitment and bravery that characterised the fierce fight for freedom, we shall fight against any attempt to retain the apartheid-colonial structures of the South African economy in which black people are excluded. To leave the existing economic structures which exclude the majority of our population in tact will indeed be feeding and reinforcing racial supremacy and prejudice.

Equally, we shall mount a ferocious battle against state capture and corruption in all their manifestation. To allow the state to be captured and public resources to be plundered through corruption by the few at the expense of the majority will be to reinforce the racial stereotype that black people in general and the ANC in particular cannot run a clean, competent and developmental state that serves the needs of the people as a whole.

We will fight for leadership integrity and economic inclusion with the same passion, determination and characteristic drama of Comrade Sipho Makama. He never compromised on integrity. He never flinched on transformation. He never hesitated in defending public interest and in fighting the corrosive effect of private interest in public institutions.

As we pay tribute to this gallant freedom fighter and outstanding servant of the people, it is perhaps proper to remember the words of Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese revolutionary:

“I have had only one aim in life; to struggle for the good of the country and the well-being of my people - It is for this reason that I have had to hide in the mountains, crouch in prisons. Whatever the moment, whatever the place, I have had a single aim, the interest of the nation, the good of the people....All my life, I have served the fatherland, the revolution and the people with all my heart and strength. If I should now depart from this world, I would have nothing to regret, except not being able to serve longer and more....”

This is what Comrade Sipho Makama did. He did everything for the benefit of the people and for the nation. He did everything for the revolution.

Honourable members, yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the family of Honourable Sipho Makama to convey our heartfelt condolences, on behalf of the government and the people of Gauteng.

I was told the story of how jolly he was on that fateful day of Easter Sunday. He went to church and he was preaching in the church, something many of us knew he never did before. So he passed on in the church, preaching the word of God with characteristic passion and conviction that has been a permanent feature of his activist life.

What a way of passing on. What a place to spend your last moment at. What a dramatic way of saying good-bye. What a surprise to us all. Those who know him would agree that an element of drama and surprise has always been part and parcel of his leadership style. What a loss to our nation and province.

To the family of Honourable Makama, we wish to say:Akwehlangalungehlanga. Comrade Makama was one of us. Your loss is therefore our loss too. We are with you in this your moment of grief.

Farewell Fellow Fighter! Farewell Combatant! Farewell Servant of the people!

Etlela hi kurhulaRibyelerikulu! Makamukanyi! Thwala! Muhlave! Xiwisa!

Ha khensa. Thank you!

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