Durban - More than a year after a group of disgruntled ANC members led by retired SA army intelligence chief, General Mojo Motau, released a document calling for the leadership of the party to be disbanded, another document has emerged and it makes similar calls.
Although the two documents are not similar, both level accusations of failure at the ANC national executive committee (NEC) and leaders of the governing party.
The new document called for the NEC to be dissolved and a caretaker structure put in place until a new set of leaders was elected.
The document first emerged on Friday and circulated among members, but unlike other documents such as the one by Motau and one by a group calling itself the Cosas Generation of Young Lions National Team (NTT), no one wants to own this one.
It was first attributed to Motau’s group, but Kaelo Sedumedo, who spoke for the group, denied this, saying “it’s not us”.
The latest document is 13 pages long and it made fresh accusations of failure and the breaching of the ANC constitution in Mpumalanga. In the case of the province, it said the ANC leadership there under the new chairperson, Mandla Ndlovu, could be illegitimate as the provincial conference included a new region called Bohlabela.
In line with aligning regions to district municipalities, the document said the ANC constitution only recognised the Ehlanzeni, Nkangala and Gert Sibande regions.
“It was contended (in the recent court case brought by Caiphus Malulemene) that Bohlabela and Ehlanzeni region are not consistent (with) Rule 21 of the ANC constitution. It was contended that the regional executive committees participated during the 2015 provincial congress as delegation, as such their participation tainted the provincial congress,” read the document.
Furthermore, the document claimed that the NEC had failed to implement almost all the resolutions of the Nasrec conference of 2017. Among the resolutions was the expropriation of land without compensation, the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank and the implementation of radical economic transformation (RET).
“Since the current NEC was elected to the position of leadership, it has sought to disassociate from this (RET) conference resolution. They demonise those who champion the resolution within the structures of the organisation, instead of encouraging the popularisation of the resolution. Our leadership, the NEC, seems to regard itself as not bound by some resolutions of the conference taken by the supreme body of the organisation,” the document stated.
It then deals with the controversial step-aside resolution of the governing party. The resolution was recently refined to ensure that members who have been criminally charged did not even raise their hands to contest for internal power after the election of Zandile Gumede in eThekwini and Mandla Msibi in Mpumalanga.
On the matter, the document claimed that the resolution was specifically revived to deal with suspended secretary-general Ace Magashule and others.
“The leadership has decided to implement only one resolution that focuses on step aside, which was clearly targeting (the) secretary-general of our organisation and some comrades. Effectively, the organisation has outsourced its responsibilities in dealing with discipline and misconduct among its members to national prosecuting authorities (sic).
“Using this measure, it has suspended the secretary-general of our organisation, who was elected at the 54th national conference. Several other comrades have been similarly forced to step aside. Some of these comrades are Sindiswa Gomba, Danny Msiza, Zandile Gumede, Mike Mabuyakhulu, Thembalethu Ntuthu, Supra Mahumapelo, just to mention but (a) few,” it claimed.
It said the forced removal of Magashule from his office led to the ANC losing its majority in some municipalities during last year’s local government elections.
“Stepping aside of the secretary-general was the biggest blow to the organisation because we were busy preparing for the local government elections. This again contributed to us, as the ANC, losing many wards and municipalities.”
ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe did not comment when asked whether the document was also sent to Luthuli House, the party’s head office in Johannesburg.
Daily News