Media Statement on the passing of Joseph Elvis Mabuza

MBOMBELA: While many within the length and breadth of the province were enjoying their Christmas holidays, the ANCPL faced an untimely tragedy through the passing on of one of its professionals. The ANCPL learnt with shock and disappointment that one of its members, Mr Joseph Elvis Mabuza, a communication specialist and professional within the department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison in Mpumalanga province, was involved in a road accident involving a car and a motor cycle where he lost his life on the scene. 

 

While the ANCPL continues to encourage society to prioritize and embark on education-related development activities and courses, viewed as being key to the future of South Africa, death continues to jealously take our human resources and intellectual property without shame. The departure of Comrade Joseph Mabuza not only leaves behind a void within the department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison, the ANCPL and society in general, but has caused a turbulence in the smooth running of these environments, which will in turn have a bearing on service delivery in view of the scarcity of professionals of his calibre, especially those who ascend from the adversities of the previously disadvantaged communities.

 

We therefore call upon our youth to be cognisant of the fact that our present professional database and pool of professionals will never be static, and will continue to be drained, in view of the harsh reality of life whereby death, amongst other things, continues to take its toll by striking untimely, and therefore the youth should rise to the challenge and take education seriously, by robustly filling up all institutions of learning. This will ensure that the ANC, as leader of society, continues to breed dynamic, educated and professional leaders, who will have the right and acceptable level of aptitude to understand policy, and be capable of implementing such policy in order to advance the National Democratic Revolution. This, by and large, and in the bigger scheme of things, will give birth to an ANC leadership that will value professional ethics as one of the cornerstones of good governance and the total eradication of “the politics of the stomach,” which was an acceptable tradition or culture in our beloved province in the past few decades. 

 

We have no divine words to send or convey to the family of the late Joseph Mabuza, those that can stop the bleeding of the torn heart, but we do have words of condolences and those premised at congratulating them for having brought to life an intellectual, activist and professional, whose legacy expressed in terms of the second objective of the ANCPL’s three triangular objectives, that of his unwavering zeal to “Serve and Defend”, will not be forgotten, and will be left behind to mark his historical professional heroism. 

 

We regard ourselves privileged to have had a professional of his calibre within our ranks, and we want to profoundly thank the family and the Almighty for having lent him to us for the time he served our institutions and its populace until his time of departure. The ANCPL, the government and society will never be the same without him. 

 

Finally, as the ANCPL, we will not shy away from the fact that our glorious movement, the ANC in the province, is at war with itself. We are continuously witnessing a political unrest waged amongst different lobby groups over the provincial list process, which seek to divert the attention of all and sundry from the most important event of this new year in the calendar of the ANC, the 2019 national elections. We therefore call upon the leaders of the different lobby groups and their constituencies, the different ANC leagues, including the professionals’ league and the alliance partners, to unite and put the interests of the ANC and its people first, and mobilise and rally behind the ANC in its election campaign towards the 2019 national elections, to ensure that we are not unwittingly punished by the opposition, by winning the elections by them taking advantage of our own vanity and greed. The spear has fallen, lets pick it up and ensure that the legacy of Comrade Joseph Elvis Mabuza is continued into future years and may his revolutionary soul find eternal peace. He shall be dearly missed.