The councillor had claimed that Sgemegeme together with Mkhondo mayor Mthokozisi Simelane hires ruthless assassins to eliminate opponents in the area.
An ANC ward councillor who took to Facebook to claim that former Mkhondo mayor Vusi ‘Sgemegeme’ Motha and current mayor Mthokozisi Simelane were behind the murder of Gert Sibande ANC deputy chair Muzi Manyathi has apologised.
The councillor, Sibonelo ‘Smile’ Mthembu, is the ward 12 councillor in the Mkhondo local municipality and accused Sgemegeme of hiring ruthless assassins to eliminate them in retaliation for removing him from power.
Mthembu’s social media soliloquy comes as the Gert Sibande region is still reeling over the brazen gunning down of 41 year-old ANC regional deputy chairman Muzi Manyathi
Manyathi was shot dead Friday evening 4 November 2022 at a petrol station in Piet Retief by an unknown gunman wearing a white cap and a white T-shirt who climbed out of a Mercedes Benz to shoot Manyathi multiple times at close range.
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Sgemegeme was expelled from the ANC along with 5 others early this year after they voted with the opposition to deliver an independent candidate, Mthokozisi Simelane, as mayor and an ATM candidate, Mduduzi Dlamini, as speaker. The chief whip is EFF councillor Siphesihle Mkhwanazi and this follows the ANC tallying a meagre 54% of the vote during the November 2021’s local government elections, owing to prolonged ANC infightings.
In a video doing the rounds on social media, Mthembu said Sgemegeme thinks he owns Mkhondo and “that can never happen”.
“If I die you must know that I was murdered by Vusi Motha. He is now resorting to killing us,” Mthembu said.
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“We are going to die and leave our young kids behind. We all know that in the last 5 years Sgemegeme was abusing us while he was mayor. Also the current mayor Mthokozisi Simelane works with Sgemegeme to kill us because we are talking the truth,” Mthembu claimed.
But on Sunday morning, Mthembu issued an apology and said he was sorry to Sgemegeme, Simelane and to Manyathi’s bereaved family.
He had deleted the first video and said it was done in a state of anger following the brutal murder of Manyathi.
“I have since come to my senses that emotions had taken me and which caused me to do that live video. I have now taken a conscious decision to do a public apology and to say what I was saying was out [of order] because I should have allowed the law enforcement to do its work. I therefore apologise to the police of Mkhondo, to Vusi Motha, I apologise to the mayor and Manyathi’s family, I know they are mourning the loss and what I did was out [of order]. I condemn it and as leaders in our society we should not be carried away by emotions,” he said.
Political infightings
It appears the political wranglings in Mkhondo are however far from over.
The expulsion of Vusi Motha from the ANC and the brutal murder of Muzi Manyathi have in fact heightened the squabbles for power in the area and in the entire Gert Sibande region.
Parties are on the ground campaigning for nine wards declared for by-elections in Mkhondo, some wards as a result of the expulsion of ANC councillors.
The Mkhondo sub-region has always been known to be divided between supporters of Sgemegeme and those of provincial secretary Muzi Chirwa.
Sgemegeme served as Chirwa’s deputy while Chirwa was Gert Sibande ANC chairman and tried to contest Chirwa’s annoited successor Walter Mngomezulu but lost when Mngomezulu emerged as the new regional chairperson at the elective congress held in Badplaas in April 2022.
Sgemegeme, after seeing that Chirwa supporters were not going to allow him to be mayor again, teamed with the opposition in a horse-trade that resulted in the municipality being run by the opposition.
The Chirwa camp took him through disciplinary proceedings and found him guilty of “transgressions, acts of misconduct, extreme levels of ill-discipline and disrespect of the ANC constitutional values, and their intentional acts of putting the ANC into disrepute by blatantly working for and with the opposition”.
They tried to appeal the sentence but their appeal was recently rejected and now the Sgemegeme camp wants to face off with the ANC in the upcoming by-elections scheduled just days before Christmas.
ANC spokeswoman Ngelosi Ndlovu is quoted on Sowetan saying they had long been aware of the plan on Manyathi’s life, since June 2022 after they saw a hitlist that contained Manyathi’s name.
Ndlovu, who is also a PR councillor in Mkhondo, said her name was second on the list and that she was now living in fear following the gunning down of the regional leader.
Chirwa said they believed Manyathi’s murder was motivated by politics because after shooting him the killers took nothing from him.
He said as the ANC they hoped the cops would make a speedily arrest so that the killers are brought to book.
ANCYL regional chairman James ‘Castro’ Nkosi says he hated corruption with passion and they believe he became target for that. Nkosi said Manyathi was unable to pretend of his hate for wrongdoing in Mkhondo.
(edited by ZK)
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