‘Finally, I’m with Cleopas, I’ll get Delta’

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'Finally, I'm with Cleopas, I'll get Delta'
NEXT TO HIM: ANC Mpumalanga chairman welcomed back 3000 BRA members led by their secretary Cleopas Maunye (L) at the Acornnhoek eHlanzeni FET College. PICTURE BY Caxton Media

ANC provincial chairman David Mabuza will get the BRA President Delta Mokoena, he told scores on Sunday.


The President of the Bushbuckridge Resident Association, Delta Mokoena, must watch out, lest he will be enticed back home by Premier David Mabuza.

Mabuza, in his capacity as ANC Mpumalanga leader, welcomed 3000 BRA members back to the ANC at the Acornhoek stadium on Sunday morning.

One of these members was BRA’s ex-secretary Cleopas Maunye, who is also the party’s only member of the Mpumalanga legislature and who was suspended during a BRA special meeting in February 2017 for “selling out to the ANC” and replaced temporarily by current acting secretary Johannes Ndlovu.

SEE ALSO: Cleopas Maunye ‘selling out to the ANC’

Maunye had also been asked by a BRA Task Team to step down as member of the legislature, something he told them he would do at the end of March 2017.

But on Sunday (2 Apr), Maunye led 3000 BRA members back to the ANC.

'Finally, I'm with Cleopas, I'll get Delta'
Mabuza (L), Maunye (C) and Bohlabela chairman Gillion Mashego (R). PICTURE:  Supplied

Addressing the mass defection at the Acornhoek sports ground, Mabuza said his next stop now was to go fetch Mokoena.

Without mentioning Mokoena by name, Mabuza said to thunderous applause: “I’m very happy that finally I’m with Cleopas, Cleopas is now next to me but there’s another one who is left, and I’ll get him, I can bet”.

He said he was now happy that the ANC in Bushbuckridge will unite and achieving this was not “an easy journey”.

SEE ALSO: Mabuza was using Robert Gumede in BRA talks

“It was a painful journey. We have been waiting for this day for some time, we have put out all our efforts into what you are seeing today. This is the big day in the history of the ANC.

“I want to thank comrade Cleopas and the entire leadership that is coming back to the ANC,” Mabuza said.

“This is a beginning of a new chapter, we’re opening a new chapter and I’d like to say to all ANC members who were mistreated and went to form BRA that we never had the opportunity to say sorry.

“You told me everything of how you were mistreated in the ANC and I’d like to take this opportunity and say I’m sorry, on behalf of the ANC in Mpumalanga we apologise,” he said.

The event was attended by Bohlabelo ANC chairman Gillion Mashego, who also addressed the gathering, and provincial chairwoman Violet Siwela and secretary Mandla Ndlovu, amongst others.

BRA is led by Mokoena as President, Daniel Mashigo as Deputy President, him Ndlovu as acting secretary, Netago Mokoena as deputy secretary as well as

treasurer Cecil Shike and won 14 seats in the Bushbuckridge local municipality.

It was formed in 2011 by ex-ANC members and since then it has been giving the ANC an electoral headache in the Bohlabelo region, clinching a seat in the provincial legislature in 2014 general elections.

(edited by MLM)

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