THE South African Communist Party (SACP) lashed out today at yesterday’s raid on the Western Cape home of journalist Jacques Pauw by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks.

Law enforcement authorities should be pursuing those involved or complicit in the corporate and criminal capture of the state and other forms of corruption and wrongdoing exposed in Mr Pauw’s book The President’s Keepers, the SACP declared.

The party said that actions by authorities that make them come across as frivolous, intimidating or seeking to silence whistleblowers and state capture critics demonstrate how deeply the rot was entrenched prior to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s election last week.

“This and similar actions reminiscent of operations by a parallel state and its rogue elements call for urgent measures to reclaim all institutions of the state on behalf of the people of South Africa,” the SACP argued.

It pointed out that at the same time as the raid on Mr Pauw’s house, “burglars” broke into the Johannesburg home of investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh, stealing his personal computer and electronic items.

There was also a raid on the Edenvale home of Saftu union federation spokesperson Patrick Craven by men claiming to be from the revenue service (Sars). Implying that they were conducting a lifestyle audit, they seized his mobile phone and laptop.

In addition, former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils was warned in writing by State Security Agency head Arthur Fraser to “desist from ventilating matters in media in a manner that may transgress the relevant intelligence statutes or any other legislation.”

Mr Kasrils, whose lawyers wrote asking how he might have transgressed “relevant intelligence statutes or any other legislation,” is considering legal action against Mr Fraser for allegedly forging his signature to authorise a massive covert operation from which billions of rands were looted, as revealed in Mr Pauw’s book.

Although President Ramaphosa’s new ANC-led administration has been in office for only a matter of days, the SACP considers it “vital that it moves rapidly to smash the state capture project and its corrupt enablers in the state’s security cluster, state-owned enterprises and elsewhere.”

It welcomed incoming Police Minister Bheki Cele’s commitment to query the Hawks’ raid on Mr Pauw’s home.