He was responding to a statement by a grouping of some branches opposed to his rule as well as Pholoso Mbatsane and Reggie Nkabinde’s ‘factional’ 74th birthday celebration.
Nkangala ANCYL secretary Thabang Mathebula has slammed all ‘mushrooming’ groupings in his region, saying they were all claiming to belong to ANCYL branches.
Mathebula was responding to a statement released by a formation of Nkangala ANCYL members, criticising the ‘factional’ ANCYL 74th celebration at the Sydney Choma community hall the past Sunday.
ANC deputy president DD Mabuza and league leader Collen Maine snubbed the 74th birthday celebration.
Sources say Mabuza was briefed on Saturday after arriving from Gauteng that the event would be more of contestant Reggie Nkabinde’s campaign than a celebration and Mabuza was going to be “used to endorse it”.
Reason Maine didn’t come was because he was aligned with the faction of Ndumiso Mokako, a presidential contestant who also snubbed the birthday celebration.
In a statement released this week, the Nkangala formation, calling itself ‘Progressive and Revolutionary Forces’, and which boasts 80% of ‘legitimate branches’, said the Nkangala youth league leadership was a “group of individuals parading as the REC”.
Group spokesman Mfundo Masombuka said the Mathebula faction “continue to claim to lead the region unmandated and in their attempt to convene the RGC they spectacularly failed, and their goons ended up assaulting rank and file members of the YL”.
SEE ASO: 74th ‘factional’ birthday celebration is criticised
“They are capable of thieving and stealing the BGMs because they are nothing but a group of marauding thugs in colours of the movement and we shall not rest until they have handed back the ANCYL to its rightful owners, which is the youth of Nkangala,” Masombuka said, adding they would go to the ground and mobilise branches towards the nomination of Trevor Nkosi, Bheki Sithole, Sipho Mahlangu and Tshepo Seema.
But Mathebula said he never heard of “such a group”.
“‘I’ve never heard of such a[n] existing structure or group.
“All members of the ANCYL in the region belongs to a particular branch,” Mathebula said.
“Well we have observed the mushrooming of structures within the region such as PRET, UETSA and now this one. They all claim to be members of the ANCYL and the ANC,” Mathebula, who is contesting Nkosi for the position of provincial chair, said.
He said BGMs will convene once the region has received an audit report from national secretary Njabula Nzuza.
(edited by ZK)
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