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Zuma's MK wants release of Verwoerd 'monopolies' report

by Staff reporter
14 Aug 2024 at 16:57hrs | Views
The Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party is asking the National Assembly to share a report on the influence of the Oppenheimer and Rupert families on South Africa's economy, which Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd - the "architect of apartheid" - commissioned in 1965.

MK MP Dr Zwelakhe Mthethwa requested this during a recent gala dinner in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal.

The so-called "Hoek report" was written by Professor Pieter Hoek of the University of Pretoria, but Verwoerd was assassinated on 6 September 1966 before he could present it to Parliament.

Mthethwa said Hoek had told Verwoerd that he was only a figurehead, while Rupert and Oppenheimer had the real economic power.

This angered Verwoerd, leading him to ask Hoek to write the report.

Mthethwa thinks the report will contain important details about who controlled South Africa's economy and how Verwoerd planned to share economic power more fairly.

On the Hendrick Verwoerd Blogspot, an unidentified author writes that Verwoerd commissioned an investigation to determine the stranglehold that economic monopolies, such as Anglo American run by the Oppenheimer family and Anton Rupert's Rembrandt alcohol and tobacco group, had on South Africa.

In the book Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, South Africa's Greatest Prime Minister, by Stephen Mitford Goodson, published in 2018, the author writes that Verwoerd planned to present the report.

But before he could present it, Verwoerd was stabbed to death in Parliament on 6 September 1966 by Dimitri Tsafendas – a Greek-born Mozambican and SACP member who worked as a parliamentary messenger.

An excerpt from Goodson's book on Amazon.com says: "Today the country is an abject colony of the international bankers and, not surprisingly, experiences the greatest disparity in income distribution in the world."

Mthethwa said: "We as the MK party are demanding that the National Assembly read this report. If they refuse, we will inform the public ourselves."

Tsafendas died in 1999 at the age of 81 in Krugersdorp.

Source - scrolla.africa