The provincial secretary of the ANC has expressed the shock of the provincial executive committee of the ANC in the province at comments made by the party’s chief whip in parliament, Jackson Mthembu, that the President of the party together with members of its national executive committee should resign.
Mpumalanga ANC secretary Mandla Ndlovu was speaking to journalists during a 30-minute media conference at the party’s ‘Che Masilela’ provincial headquarters in Mbombela, Mpumalanga on Monday afternoon.
He said Zuma was elected by congress in 2012 as well as the NEC that Mthembu is saying should step down.
Ndlovu said it was “facetious” for anybody to say Zuma and members of the NEC must resign without a congress.
The NEC is elected by an elective congress and according to the party’s Constitution it is the highest-decision making body of the ANC between elective congresses.
“The ANC in Mpumalanga is perturbed by calls from one Jackson Mthembu, who in the midst of a quiet weekend, decided to take it upon himself to speak, unmandated and out of turn, about the resignation of the President and the NEC,” Ndlovu said at the boardroom of provincial headquarters.
Ndlovu was responding to Mthembu’s interview with City Press over the weekend where he looked at the fraud charges against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and said if the NEC and Zuma didn’t step down now the party stands to lose power in 2019’s general elections.
He said all of them as members of the NEC had failed to lead the party correctly and was the time now that they resign.
Ndlovu told journalists as ANC in the province they were not able to understand why Mthembu decided to “veer off the stated path like he did”.
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”We cannot comprehend in what capacity he may have been speaking when he made such utterances because as the chief whip in parliament he is the head of the caucus and the caucus as we know doesn’t speak on behalf of the NEC.
”This therefore begs the question of who was he speaking on behalf of,” Ndlovu said, before criticising harshly ANC member Sipho Pityane, who is also the chairman of the Anglo-Gold Ashanti mining group, who also made a similar call two months ago.
Labelling Pityane a “mouthpiece of white capital”, Ndlovu said: “It is surprising that this particular sector of society has now seemingly found its moral compass when they have been the ones that have been impeding transformation since the dawn of democracy, when workers in their shafts remain exploited and unpaid,” he said.
(edited by MLM)
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