Sacrificial MP still in limbo

THE man who was strongarmed out of parliament to make way for Brian Molefe to become an MP has been unemployed since February.

Abram Mudau, right, said he was sitting at home because the ANC had not redeployed him as promised.

But he said that if the party told him to return to parliament, “I can’t say no.”

This week Molefe, without informing the ANC, resigned from parliament to return to Eskom as CEO. Earlier this year he was placed on the parliamentary list from the North West despite objections by some party members that he did not belong to ANC structures in that province. The rush at the time was to make Molefe an MP so that he could be appointed finance minister, a plan that was thwarted by senior ANC and SACP leaders.

At the time, the ANC leadership in the province cited an injury Mudau had suffered as a pretext to make him resign and create a vacancy.

But it emerged that the injury was a broken leg he suffered in 2013, almost a year before he first entered parliament. Mudau said the leg had healed. “The doctors said I am fine . . . I have recovered. I am just at home,” he said.

At the time of his resignation the ANC in the province said it would redeploy him to a post less strenuous than parliament.

The ANC in the North West said it had yet to decide on a replacement for Molefe and referred other questions on the matter to the ANC head office.

Mudau is regarded as a victim of political manoeuvring that accompanied the sacking of Pravin Gordhan.

President Jacob Zuma appointed Malusi Gigaba to replace Gordhan, leaving Molefe as a backbencher.