How can my leader want to bed me?
ANC spokesperson’s PA details how he tried his luck with her, and once woke up to find him in her hotel bed
ANC Luthuli House has been rocked by a sex scandal after a 26-year-old personal assistant to ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe alleged that he sexually harassed her.
In a letter of grievances addressed to ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, she lists two instances – at St George’s hotel, outside Pretoria, and in Limpopo when doing ANC work. She claimed that Mabe worked from her room on the first night at St George’s with an ANC Gauteng leader.
“I sat on one [bed] and comrade Pule was lying on the other one while busy on his iPad. The Gauteng leader was sitting on a chair and leaning on the bed comrade Pule was lying on.
“When the Gauteng leader left, Pule then invited me to sit next to him on the bed he was lying on. I had an exam pad with me that the leader was writing on and Pule was transferring what was on the pad to his iPad as we were speaking. Now when this other one left, he decides to invite me to the bed he was lying on,” she states.
She further claimed that on the second night, Mabe decided to work on his assignment in her room again, saying he feared he would fall asleep if he was alone.
She fell asleep in the clothes she wore during the day and was later surprised to wake up finding Mabe in bed with her with his le gs on top of her body. “I snapped and asked why he was in my blankets, his response was that he was taking a break from completing his assignment, which didn’t make sense at all. My heart beat so fast because a lot of things occupied my mind. “I then remembered the previous night, when I was asked to sit closer to him in an inappropriate manner which an employer and an employee shouldn’t find themselves in,” she wrote.
She further claimed that while they were in Limpopo for the party’s communication workshop, Mabe walked into her room at night after she had bathed and was in bed. At that time, she was on the phone with her boyfriend, Thulani, an ANC member. “I got on the phone with comrade Thulani, and Pule walked into my room while I was lying there, the phone was on loudspeaker. He lay on the bed; I’m in my pyjamas and uncomfortable, he moved closer to me and put his arm onto my shoulder. “I knew then that I had to gather some courage to tell him to move, which I did. He left the room, and I got into my blankets, with the lights on and tried to sleep.
“Until I heard movements in the room. I opened my eyes to realise that it was him. I saw him plug his power bank to the charger and he stood there for a while as if he was trying to think of his next move.” She claimed that she never slept that night until sunrise. “I rushed to bath and exited the hotel, such that I didn’t even wake him up. I was so scared I just wanted to see myself out.”
She claimed that in the months that followed she was always shouted at by Mabe. She said he also threatened that she would lose her job on several occasions during the screaming calls from him. The woman said the threats came true when she received a call from human resources on November 16.
“I was called in to be shown my new package on an unauthorised paper. My salary has been excessively cut without following due processes, and to a larger extent.”
She said her salary had been cut by R15,000. “In the end I was blackmailed; that at least I will be getting something, there are some people who are out there and aren’t getting anything,” she said.
I was so scared I just wanted to see myself out