ANC ward councillor: I’m being forced out
A KHAYELITSHA ward councillor said she was being forced to resign from her position, months after an internal party report showed the fraudulent nature of the councillor selection process.
Ward 93 councillor Ntombebala Mquqwana has been asked by ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs to resign, a year after she took up her seat in the council over her irregular selection as a candidate.
“He says I came in (to the council) fraudulently,” said Mquqwana.
At the weekend, she addressed Town Two residents, explaining to them that she was being forced to resign as their councillor.
“They want me to resign, but I won’t resign until Faiez and Richard Dyantyi come to the ward and tell the people that they have been spreading lies about me.
“There’s another person who wants that position.
“Faiez and Dyantyi threatened me with disciplinary action, but nothing came of it.”
An ANC national executive committee task team report found that there had been a concerted effort to undermine the authority of the guidelines, to sway councillor selection for factional ends.
According to the task team report, regional secretaries often changed the names of candidates selected during ANC branch general meetings.
The process was supposed to be democratic, but instead ended up with the ANC having to probe the claims from disgruntled branches of impropriety by regional executives.
This caused protests, with angry ANC members marching on the party’s provincial office to register their displeasure.
Mquqwana said it had been ordered that a by-election will be called once she resigns from her council seat.
“Faiez Jacobs destroyed my integrity because he claimed I was a fraudster and I won’t be able to stand (in the by-election),” said Mquqwana.
Despite questions around her candidacy, the ANC trounced all other parties in Ward 93, getting 83% of the vote.
The competition to be selected as a ward candidate, in a ward with strong ANC support was fierce, especially because of the ANC’s overall poor performance in the rest of Cape Town, where in total it managed to get only 24.3% of the vote compared to the 66.6% for the DA.
City of Cape Town Speaker Dirk Smit said although he was made aware of questions around the future of Mquqwana’s tenure in the council chamber, he had not received anything in writing.
“I’m awaiting finalisation. I have nothing definite or final with me.”
Jacobs said the ANC was going through a process of verifying disputes stemming from the selection of candidates from last year’s local government elections.
Without commenting directly on Mquqwana’s claims, Jacobs said: “We are trying to deal with it in a comradely manner.”