Top brass to decide on league

THE fate of the Eastern Cape ANC Youth League’s disbanded provincial executive is now in the hands of the party’s national top brass.

This after the disbanded executive finally met the party’s national working committee, including president Jacob Zuma, his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa and secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, this week.

The disgruntled members travelled to Luthuli House in Johannesburg on Monday to plead for the reversal of the September disbandment.

They were afforded an opportunity to plead their case before the working committee, and are now awaiting a decision from the mother body which could be delivered in the next five days, ANCYL provincial spokesman Ayongezwa Lungisa said.

The provincial executive was supposed to have met the working committee two weeks ago, but their meeting was cancelled at the eleventh hour, while some executive members were already in Johannesburg.

This was because the national executive had sat a day longer than scheduled.

This week’s meeting with the party’s top brass was confirmed yesterday by ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa, who said the working committee would communicate their decision with the league as soon as it had made its determination on the matter.

Kodwa said the working committee was yet to make a decision, so he could not say whether the disbandment would be reversed.

Lungisa said yesterday the meeting lasted for nearly two hours and executive members were allowed to present their arguments against the ANCYL national executive’s decision to disband them.

Lungisa declined to reveal the contents of their presentation.

“We did get a chance to state our story, and now we will wait for the leadership to make a determination,” he said.

The disbanded executive, chaired by Nathi Nqoko with Butsha Lali as provincial secretary, has been divided over the decision to appeal against its disbandment.