The SACP in the Gert Sibande region of Mpumalanga has been robbed of two district executive committee members following the death of parliamentarian Nokhaya Mnisi and Nomthandazo Karube.
Disgruntled Bohlabela ANCYL members want Bheki Sithole as secretary in Trevor Nkosi slate
They also mention YCL provincial spokesman Lucky Zitha as their preferred man for the position of provincial deputy chair.
Bohlabela ANCYL members belonging to a faction that wrote to national secretary Njabulo Nzuza complaining about a May 2018 regional elective congress being marred by unfairness are currently infiltrating the ground to garner enough support for league provincial spokesman Bheki Sithole to become the provincial secretary when a congress is held soon.
Led by Bushbuckridge subregion ward 10 chairman Kabelo Ndziyo, the members said they are on a mission to seek a new leadership in the province that will “revive” the ANCYL from its “grave”. The group believes Ndumiso Mokako is the right leader for the position of President, Trevor Nkosi for the position of Mpumalanga league chairperson and Sithole as secretary.
They also want Lucky Zitha, the YCL provincial spokesman, to become the deputy chairman.
But this is setting them against the leadership that won the May congress which wants provincial secretary Pholoso Mbatsane to retain his post.
The group stood up and left the May 2018 Bohlabela ANCYL elective conference in exodus soon after credentials were adopted, complaining that NEC deployee deputy president Desmond Moela was conducting the conference unfairly and they no longer wanted to participate.
The Bohlabela conference hall after the other faction had allegedly staged an exodus, crying unfairness.
They later wrote a letter to Nzuza complaining of the way the conference was conducted and the “bogus delegates” that were allegedly added to defeat them.
“We want Trevor as chair, Lucky Zitha as deputy chair, Bheki Sithole as secretary, Musa Nkuna as deputy secretary and Sthembile Mhlongo as treasurer,” Ndziyo told the 013NEWS reporter this week Wednesday.
He said nationally they will prefer Mokako and KZN secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo as secretary general and that they had the number of branches to ensure this happens.
“We don’t want Pholoso Mbatsane because he is part of the group that was conducting the conference unfairly and robbing us in order to get the people they want to remote-control to emerge.
“Both Tim Mashele and Mbatsane failed the ANCYL, we don’t want them. Since they got elected in 2015 they never had programs,” he said.
“Trevor is better because we saw what he did in Gert Sibande in terms of programs and is someone who is not arrogant and is able to deal with people peacefully and that’s why we want him and Sithole,” Ndziyo said.
Lucky Zitha.
The Ndziyo group had wanted former acting regional secretary Nhlamulo Mayindi to become the secretary as well as Musa Nkuna to become the chair but lost to Precious Tonga who got elected the chairwoman as well as Mourice Khoza who became the secretary on the day they chose to leave.
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They claim the current leadership of Tonga and Khoza is an “imposed structure” and is scared of calling a Regional General Council to finish the business of the May 2018 congress “because they know they don’t have the branches” and were elected by “bogus delegates”.
They also accuse them of being “remote-controlled” by ANC provincial spokeswoman Sasekani Manzini and “cannot do anything without her permission”.
“Precious even worked in Sasekani’s office and each and every program they want to have they ask Sasekani first and if she says no they won’t do it,” Ndziyo said.
Manzini, who is also health MEC, is from the Bohlabela region and previously served as the ANCYL provincial secretary.
“That structure we don’t recognise it. It is a structure of Sasekani and Desmond,” he said, adding that the reason the structure was “imposed” it was for the sole reason of using it to pronounce league provincial leader Tim Mashele as the regional secretary of the ANC in the Bohlabela region in the near future.
Sasekani Manzini (L), Tim Mashele (C) and Desmond Moela (R). 013NEWS/ZK.
Ndziyo said the current leadership has few branches, “very few” and that of the 123 delegates that attended the May 2018 congress a number of 74 delegates were “on our side and that is the reason they had to get bogus delegates to add to their numbers,” he said.
Manzini told the 013NEWS reporter that she refuses to be dragged into ANCYL squabbles as she is no longer an ANCYL member.
She said she only attended the May 2018 conference as an invited guest and is having nothing to do with the other claims.
Moela promised he would respond to media enquiries but never did.
Regional secretary Mourice Khoza rejected the claims, saying the Ndziyo group will always say but can never give names of the people they claim were bogus delegates.
Bohlabela ANCYL chairwoman Precious Tonga.
“Everything in that congress was fair. I was contesting against the former Regional Task Team member comrade Nhlamulo Mayindi and delegates from branches rejected him,” Khoza said.
“We were not imposed at all but elected by branch delegates of Bohlabela region,” he said, “and I think it’s about time they must provide names of the so-called bogus delegates and the names of delegates they say left congress, they can’t provide that information because there is no such,” Khoza said.
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Khoza said as far he knows the few BGMs that had taken place had nominated Mbatsane to retain the post of secretary.
“We are busy with BGMs and few branches which went to their respective BGMs in the region want Lucky Zitha to be deputy chairperson and Pholoso Mbatsane to retain his position as secretary of the province.
“We will support anyone for chairperson and we are waiting for the other regions to lobby us as a region. I heard that there is a name of Thabang Mathebula and Trevor Nkosi. Both are capable to lead the province,” the secretary said.
Provincial spokesman Bheki Sithole said it was good that branches were conducting BGMs to choose preferred candidates and were exercising their constitutional rights in that manner.
He said any member of the ANCYL in good standing had a right to elect or get elected, adding that he will only stand “only if I’m approached by branches, not just a person standing there calling my name. No”.
He said it was the branches that have the right to choose who must lead the province and “not the province”.
“If branches sit and put people’s names forward, people they believe should lead the province they are practising their constitutional mandate and is a mandate that no one should take away from the branches. It must be a bottom up approach and not the other way around,” Sithole said.
(edited by ZK)
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