‘Step aside, Ace’
Free State branches will continue mass action to force Magashule out
Free State branches that marched against secretary general Ace Magashule this week will launch a major campaign to force him to step aside next month when Mangaung mayor Olly Mlamleli and her R255-million asbestos scandal coaccused appear in court in Bloemfontein again on corruption charges.
They will continue to push the ANC national executive committee (NEC) to suspend Magashule over corruption in the province during his decade as premier, and to dissolve the provincial executive committee (PEC) elected in 2018, months after he was elected as secretary general.
The elective conference has been the subject of a high court challenge over alleged gatekeeping and procedural problems.
The initial court challenge failed but has moved to the supreme court of appeal, which is expected to confirm a date for the matter to be heard next month.
Sekhopi Malebo, a former Free State transport MEC and one of the organisers of the march to ANC headquarters at Luthuli House, said the campaign would involve civil society, the party’s alliance partners and the Mangaung Crisis Committee, which has been holding weekly anti-corruption protests during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The campaign will see the ANC branches coalescing with a number of other anti-corruption and civil society groups that had already held other protests at the Zondo commission hearings and elsewhere, and will culminate in a rolling mass action campaign early next year.
Malebo said the march had been sparked by accumulated frustration about the looting of the province’s provincial and municipal coffers,
and over gatekeeping within the ANC in the province by Magashule’s supporters, who run the existing PEC.
“The demand that the secretary general recuse himself and be charged, along with other delinquents that have been involved in corruption in the province during his tenure as premier, has to be seen as an accumulation of frustration over years,” Malebo said.
Malebo said the ANC NEC needed to implement its decision that all people implicated in corruption should “stand aside” from their party and state posts, starting with the office of the secretary general.
“There is no other way in which this can be handled. There has been more than a decade of people acting with impunity, and they now have to be called to account.
“Magashule needs to leave the office now. He needs to account to the Zondo commission for what happened under his leadership,” he said.
Malebo said the silence of the provincial executive committee over
the arrest of Mlamleli, who is also the leader of the ANC Women’s League in the province, was an indication that it was unwilling to take any action that Magashule did not authorise.
Malebo said the court challenge by ANC members who had been excluded from the provincial conference would continue at the appeal court once a date had been set.
In the interim, the NEC needed to intervene and set aside the outcome of the conference, which had allegedly been rigged to favour Magashule’s supporters.
On Tuesday, ANC branches and the intended beneficiaries of a num
ber of projects that were looted during Magashule’s tenure as premier submitted a memorandum to Luthuli House demanding his removal from office.
The memorandum declared support for the NEC “step aside” ruling and called for its immediate implementation across all levels of the party leadership.
It expressed support for the Zondo commission and called for the speedy prosecution of all of those implicated in corruption by the criminal justice system.
It also called for immediate state relief for the intended beneficiaries of the Estina Dairy project and other looted projects and for all the province’s municipalities to be placed under administration because of perpetual negative audits.
The NEC was also asked to rein in the radical economic transformation faction headed by Magashule, which had created an “organisation within the organisation”.
In addition, the memorandum asked the NEC to review the decision by the province’s disciplinary committee that cleared Matjhabeng mayor Nkosinjani Speelman on charges of making racist utterances.
Another of the march organisers, Shima Mohohlo, said they would wait for a response from the NEC, which they expected to receive ahead of the November 11 court appearance of Mlamleli and six others on corruption charges.
Mlamleli, an ally of Magashule, was arrested last month, together with Edwin Sodi, chief executive of Blackhead Consulting, which was paid for the 2014 tender to replace asbestos roofs. The work was never carried out.
“We are ANC members in good standing who participated in the march. It is important for us to ensure there shouldn’t be an impression that in the Free State, there are only people in the ANC who say, ‘hands off Ace Magashule.’ We went there to show that people in the Free State want the Zondo commission and the criminal justice sector to go ahead with their work,” Mohohlo said.
The anti- Magashule grouping believes that, despite his dominance of ANC Free State politics for more than a decade and the history of gatekeeping, they could successfully contest a provincial conference held under fair conditions.
“The NEC needs to dissolve this PEC and replace it with a provincial task team or interim committee to run the party in the province, as they have done in the North West. This will allow us to rebuild the party and hold a conference under fair conditions,” Sima said.
The Free State PEC has remained unmoved in its support for Magashule and has failed to act against Mlamleli, deciding to buck the NEC ruling and await the outcome of her trial.
Mlamleli’s supporters have also been vocal, turning out for her initial court appearance to proclaim her innocence. They claim that she has been the victim of a purge of Magashule’s forces by the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority.
ANC Free State spokesperson Thabo Meeko undertook to provide the Mail & Guardian with comment, but had failed to do so by the time of publication.
“Magashule needs to leave the office now. He needs to account to the Zondo commission for what happened under his leadership”