The council vows they will make the necessary noise to draw the attention of national leadership.
A war waged by the MK Council in the Mpumalanga province looks set to give the Mpumalanga ANC a very rough time, one that will ensure its leadership is completely changed.
The MK Council say they are not surrendering until fundamental changes have been achieved in the ANC of the province.
They accuse the ANC of “elevating” people who have no capacity to occupy positions of power and of being “corrupt to the core” while at the same time bribing journalists to not expose them”.
Basically the Mpumalanga ANC’s provincial executive committee and their regional committees are seen as groupings that care for their own interests and that have maintained a social distance while abandoning service delivery to their loyal voters.
“This corruption in Mpumalanga needs to be brought to the attention of the nation,” MK Council spokesman Jacques Madipane said when he spoke to the media.
He said this happening because a certain grouping in Mpumalanga has “cloned and compromised the ANC”.
“Our call is that for us to remove this corruption and fix these leaders we have to disband the PEC of the ANC in this province,” he told the SABC.
There has been a growing call for the Mpumalanga ANC PEC to be disbanded.
One faction aligned to chairman hopeful Peter Nyoni is currently taking the ANC to court in order to have the PEC disbanded and its 2015 resolutions done away with.
Weeks ago the outcomes of a planned provincial list conference was criticised as being “abnormal” and not reflecting the views of the branches by the ANCYL in the province and the MK Council.
They accused the “abusive dominant faction” of manipulating the outcomes against the will of branches in order to have the people they want there but acting ANC secretary Lindiwe Ntshalintshali said all the people who said certain people were removed from the list clearly didn’t understand ANC processes.
“If you received less than 10 branches, nobody removed you. It’s the process that removed you. You didn’t qualify,” said Ntshalintshali, adding they followed all processes as PEC.
“As the Mpumalanga ANC we have complied in terms of all the processes and we have taken the mandate that was given to the PEC and List Committee to the National List Conference and we are respecting our structures,” she said.
The MK Council said their newly launched Cadres Forum will go all the way “to cleanse the ANC and restore it back to the people”.
They say a planned list conference went the way it was supposed to and those who are suggesting otherwise are not honest.
The Mpumalanga ANC has slammed suggestions that it presided over an “abnormal” list conference which saw certain leaders being allegedly removed from the list, saying the MK Council is a factional grouping of the MKMVA and they will always say such.
In their operation they will always try and portray the leadership as bad because they believe it’s not leadership when they are not there, it said.
The party says all processes were followed and there would not be ways where the votes could have be manipulated in favour of certain people.
Provincial acting secretary Lindiwe Ntshalintshali responds following threats made by the MK Council a week ago – where they called on national leader Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene and suspend the Mpumalanga list conference because it was rigged or “perverted”.
READ ALSO: MK Council threatens violence over list irregularities
The ANCYL in the province has also questioned the outcomes of the list conference, saying such was not the view of the branches.
Ntshalintshali said those who say so “clearly do not understand internal processes” and there was no way the processes could have been rigged in favour of certain leaders aligned to a dominant faction.
“It’s about branches. If branches don’t put your name or the people you want [then] you go all over the place telling people that processes were not followed. You are being unfair,” Ntshalintshali said when she spoke to the 013NEWS reporter over the phone.
She said the conference was run by an election team appointed by Luthuli House.
Ntshalintshali said there were three lists for the list conference – province to province, province to national and national to national and branches were given the opportunity to choose 20 leaders per list.
She said during the nomination process once a leader’s name got nominated by over 10 branches that person would then qualify to be on the ballot paper ahead of a conference.
“If you received less than 10 branches, nobody removed you. It’s the process that removed you. You didn’t qualify,” she said over the phone.
She said that the MK Council is a group of people that broke away from the MKMVA and in the ANC “we don’t have a structure called MK Council. This is a faction”.
She said the person being quoted in media as the council’s provincial executive committee member, Jacques Modipane, cannot even win a branch.
Ntshalintshali said Modipane’s ward in Bushbuckridge is run by the Bushbuckridge Residents Association and if he must speak about provincial issues why is he not sorting out his branch issue.
“He was once a PEC member and an MEC. Imagine his own ward is run by the opposition but he expects to be elected into the list. Even if we can give him an opportunity to run as a ward councillor he won’t win. So you see a person like that,” Ntshalintshali said.
The list conference was held at the Mbombela stadium on 9 December 2018 to elect leaders who should go to the legislature and Parliament.
The MK Council has said that the processes were not followed and were calling on Ramaphosa to suspend the list outcomes, citing that it was marred by manipulation.
The council said that if Ramaphosa didn’t adhere to their call for the suspension of the list conference they would resort to violence and “dead bodies will be picked from the street”.
“Our warning to the president is that, please see this team. We don’t want to collect bodies on the streets, people not able to go to work and schools being disturbed,” Modipane, said.
But Ntshalintshali said as ANC they are not scared of the MK Council.
She said as long as they know that they are in the right, nobody can threaten the movement.
“We are saying that there would not be ways where the processes could have been manipulated. People are just being unfair and calling for unnecessary attention,” she said.
He was recalled on 18 March 2018 but had since refused to leave the post.
The DA has accused Lekwa mayor Linda Dhlamini of holding the local municipality hostage after he brought in his supporters to come disrupt a council sitting.
In a video doing the rounds on the social media, the SANCO members are seen singing and chanting struggle songs, bringing the house into a halt.
The incident happened on 20 November 2018 at the municipal office in Standerton where the DA’s Tornado Nkambule was bringing a debate for a motion of no confidence against the controversial mayor.
The sitting had to be suspended by the speaker.
Mpumalanga DA shadow co-operative MEC James Masango said after the disruption of council, Dhlamini led a group of people carrying dangerous weapons who went to the speaker’s office, damaging municipal properties.
Dhlamini, who is at loggerhead with ANC regional leader Muzi Chirwa, was recalled early this year by the ANC in the Gert Sibande region but has clung on his position.
The ANC wants him to leave the post and be replaced by regional treasurer Khosi Khota because of an “impasse” in the municipality “which affects service delivery” but Dhlamini supporters say the man is going nowhere.
Masango said the ANC councillors who are an overwhelming majority in the council had agreed on a secret ballot.
“Service delivery in Lekwa is virtually non-existent as this municipality is not only failing to pay Eskom and the Rand Water board but it has also allowed raw sewage for flow unabated through the streets, around people’s homes and into the Vaal River for many years,” Masango said.
Lekwa is one of the five municipalities that Premier Refilwe Mtshweni last month announced had been placed under financial rescue by the provincial government.
The DA wants disciplinary actions against the mayor.
Ntshalintshali said they are following a communication by national secretary Ace Magashule.
“The letter from the secretary reaffirming an NEC decision says we should concentrate on elections,” she said.
She said the NEC early this year had put “timelines” for provinces to hold congresses and provincial general council “and later on said Mpumalanga should no longer. You will do it next year,” said Ntshalintshali said.
She added for now they are concentrating on preparing for elections.
The date of the 2019 general elections will be announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Constitutionally, the elections should be called any time between 8 May and 7 August 2019.
The current term ends on 8 May 2019 and the IEC will then have a time frame of 90 days to hold elections, and the date will be chosen by Ramaphosa falling within this 90 days window.
eMalahleni residents woke up to gloomy news of abduction of the two children.
KINGDOM MABUZA
eMalahleni mayor Lindiwe Ntshalintshali is speechless at the unfortunate episode against the most ostracised and vulnerable group in society after the kidnapping of a child with albinism in the township of Hlalanikahle and another, mistaken to also be an albino.
Gabisile Shabane (13) and 15 month old Nkosikhona Ngwenya were abducted on Sunday morning (28 Jan 2018) and cops are appealing to anybody with information to come forward.
Gabisile is living with albinism and it is suspected that the three men who broke into their home on the Sunday night, also targeted Nkosikhona, whom they mistook for another baby who also lives with albinism in the family.
“Cases of kidnapping of people living with albinism are rife in Tanzania, and lately in KwaZulu Natal and there has been a surge of cases of kidnapping in general here in eMalahleni,” Ntshalintshali said.
“But we suspect that the kidnapping of these two children is related to superstitious belief,” she said.
Nkosikhona Ngwenya
“I hope that police will apprehend those behind the kidnapping.
“There has been stories of people living with albinism being murdered for their body parts and these children have a right to life like any other child,” the mayor said on Wednesday this week.
“The false belief that their body parts have extraordinary powers must be eradicated, albinism is a genetically inherited condition,” said Ntshalintshali.
*Mabuza is the communication manager in the mayor’s office.
Fighting leaders of the ANCYL in Nkangala have “put aside” their differences for the unity of chair Bobo Mtshweni and his rival secretary Thabang Mathebula.
eMalahleni businessman Themba ‘Masofa’ Sgudla has roped in a local traditional leader to register a political party ahead of the 2019 general elections.
