Johannesburg - Some members of the ANC felt disrespected by the president’s unexplained no show at the Nasrec meeting, which caused an early adjournment.
This is after President Cyril Ramaphosa failed to attend the special NEC meeting held at the Nasrec Conference Centre on Friday, where members of the ANC gathered to discuss the Section 89 independent panel report, which found that Ramaphosa may have violated his oath of office and the constitution when he concealed the Phala Phala farm robbery in 2020.
The report compiled by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo found that Ramaphosa may have violated his oath of office and the constitution by failing to report the burglary at his Phala Phala farm in 2020, where millions of dollars in American currency were stolen.
One such member is ANC NEC Tandi Mahambehlala, who told the SABC that the meeting began on the wrong footing due to conflicts between members of the party inside the conference venue.
"We felt disrespected by the absence of the president, who is the deployee of the ANC. There were many mixed feelings. The contradictions between the treasurer general (Paul Mashatile) and the national chairperson (Gwede Mantashe) in addressing the issue of the absence of the president itself caused contradiction. It created this situation of us not sitting, concluding, or even starting the meeting itself," Mahambehlala said.
Mahambehlala added that this was the ultimate sign of disrespect to have the president absent from such an important meeting.
"The ANC president needed to come so that everyone is given the opportunity to give council where it is needed and to raise what needed to be raised if we are to criticise constructively in the presence of the deployee of the ANC who is the State President, comrade Cyril Ramaphosa.
"Unfortunately, he was not in the meeting, and with all the different reports that were tabled by both the national chairperson and the TG on the account of why the president was not in the meeting, it created a problem," she said.
However, when addressing members of the media, Mashatile put the president’s absence and the adjournment of the meeting down to the fact that the president was still consulting widely, adding that the meeting was adjourned so as to give the NEC members a chance to receive the Section 89 report.
After the adjournment of the NEC meeting on Friday, Carl Niehaus told The Star: "They should have taken a decision to fire him via WhatsApp because it was disrespectful of him to not attend this special NEC meeting. You must understand that some of the members came from all over the country for this matter to be discussed.
"I feel as though both Mashatile and Gwede Mantashe are protecting Ramaphosa from being held accountable because we have since learned that Ramaphosa is not even in Gauteng but in Cape Town, which shows that it was never his intention to attend this meeting."
Mashatile said the president was still in consultation with other stakeholders, which made it impossible for him to attend the meeting on Friday.
He added that since the finalisation of the report, the president had yet to meet with the party. He said following the adjournment, the NEC would meet before Tuesday to discuss its way forward ahead of the 55th national conference, which kicks off in 10 days.
The Star