ANC court battle over regional conference
MMABATHO: Irregularities at ANC branches do not affect the regional conference, the North West High Court heard on yesterday.
“The conference is attended by many branches which do not have irregularity, an irregularity at a certain branch must not affect the entire conference,” Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi told the court.
The high court is hearing a review application by former Bojanala regional secretary Tokyo Mataboge and 39 others seeking the court to set aside the branch general meeting of 40 branches and to nullify the Bojanala regional conference.
They alleged that at least 40 branches were not constitutionally launched, while furthermore over 70 signatures were forged.
Ngcukaitobi said the least irregularities could affect the regional conference was when a member from the affected branch was elected into the regional conference.
“There are 30 members in the regional executive committee, only four are from the affected branches,” he said.
He argued that the matter was prematurely brought to court as the provincial executive committee of the ANC in North West was dealing with the dispute.
“In terms of the branch guidelines, a dispute is referred to the dispute committee seven days after the branch meeting. Must be signed by one-third of people who attended the meeting…”
He said in the case of Bojanala region branches, the procedure was not followed.
He said there was no intent from the applicants to exhaust all internal processes of the ANC to resolve the dispute, given that they lodged the court application on August 8, while the ANC notified them that the dispute is being addressed.
Terry Motau, for the applicants, maintained that they lodged the dispute with the ANC national and provincial office in December 2016, and eight months later nothing was done to resolve their dispute. “The ANC did not do what it was supposed do over a period. There is no attempt to resolve the dispute,” he said, adding that the organisation failed to discipline a member they alleged worked with opposition parties.
He said his clients were not invited or notified about branch meetings.