ANC officials escape party sanction

MORE urgent steps should be taken to protect the image of the organisation and enhance its standing in society by ensuring, among others, that urgent action is taken to deal with public officials, leaders and members of the ANC who face damaging allegations of improper conduct. The ANC can no longer allow prolonged processes that damage its integrity.”

That was a resolution taken at the Mangaung ANC elective conference in 2012 intended for those implicated in wrongdoing to step down until their names have been cleared.

That turned out to be all talk and no action because, since then, a number of ANC leaders have been accused of several crimes.

It was always going to be difficult for politicians to step down, while they clear their names in courts of law because for some being a councillor, MPL or MP is a way of making ends meet.

Then there is also the innocent until proven guilty principle.

In the Eastern Cape it was ANC provincial executive committee (PEC) member Andile Lungisa who withdrew himself from the PEC when he was facing fraud and money-laundering charges.

He and three others had been accused of conning the Department of Arts and Culture out of R2.5-million in 2013. This was in relation to a music concert by US musician R Kelly that never took place. After all charges were withdrawn against Lungisa, he returned to his PEC position.

Now a councillor in Nelson Mandela Bay, Lungisa and fellow ANC councillor Gamalihleli Maqula are accused of assaulting DA councillors in a chaotic council meeting last year.

Former Higher Education Deputy Minister Mduduzi Manana assaulted Mandisa Duma outside a Johannesburg club last month. Because of mounting calls for him to be fired, he quit his cabinet position but is still an MP.

In Buffalo City Metro Ward 13, Nokulunga Matiwane and her husband Mthuthuzeli Matiwane are accused of murdering two women from Dice. She is out on R500 bail.

Matiwane is also accused of selling Extended Public Works Programme jobs.

The Mangaung resolution was taken as a calculated move to save the ANC from being brought into disrepute.

ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane and BCM mayor Xola Pakati visited the families of Matiwane’s alleged victims this week.

But to simply say they are “ashamed and disgraced” and that it is “unacceptable” for elected leaders to be involved in “such heinous crime” is not enough.

Both Mabuyane and Pakati, who doubles as Dr W B Rubusana ANC regional chairman, are in a position to discipline Matiwane. But to date, we have not heard of any internal disciplinary processes being instituted against the alleged corrupt councillor.

If alleged criminals like Matiwane, Lungisa, Manana and Maqula are allowed to keep their posts while in and out of court, the party might be punished at the polls in 2019 – just like it was punished last year.