Other names topping the 30-day list with Ace
Many have refused to resign for years, but we may soon see the last gasp of their fightback
In recent months, the ANC has mulled over several drafts of convoluted step-aside guidelines, heaving with sub-clauses, but the order that emerged from its national executive committee (NEC) meeting last week was streamlined and fairly crisp.
“All members who have been charged with corruption or other serious crimes, must step aside within 30 days, failing which they should be suspended.”
The full list of those to whom it applies is long, less clear and likely to be contested. The question of what constitutes “serious crimes” makes a ready starting point for those who want to fight to keep their positions.
In as far as the order is unassailable on corruption charges, the list is topped by Ace Magashule, who faces more than 70 charges of corruption, fraud, theft, money-laundering and racketeering stemming from the Free State asbestos audit scandal.
His refusal to stand down as secretary general has held firm since his indictment in November and arguably forced the decision at the NEC meeting. The secretary general is nominally tasked with helping the party’s regional structures to determine who must vacate their positions in terms of the directive, but given Magashule’s conflicted position this is likely to fall to his deputy, Jessie Duarte.
There should be no equivocation on the following cases involving corruption charges, but it must be noted that the accused have all resisted stepping down, some for years.
Former state security minister Bongani Bongo became the first MP to be charged with corruption in 2017 after parliamentary law adviser Ntuthuzelo Vanara alleged that he asked him to “name his price” to undermine an inquiry into state capture at Eskom.
Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe controversially dismissed the case in February after Bongo’s lawyers filed a section 174 application but the state has sought leave to appeal the ruling. Bongo also faces corruption charges in Nelspruit relating to a fraudulent land transaction involving the Mpumalanga department of human settlements.
Bongo said in August that he would step aside as an MP and NEC member, but made a U-turn soon after saying he would only do so if given “legal basis”. He remains the chairman of parliament’s portfolio committee on home affairs.
Danny Msiza, the ANC treasurer general in Limpopo, in March became the first politician to be arrested and charged in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal. He faces a raft of corruption charges for allegedly persuading at least 10 municipalities to invest their monies with the now-defunct bank, in breach of public finance regulations.
Msiza is pleading not guilty, after years of claiming he was unfairly impugned and is asking the court to have parts of the first forensic report on the collapse of the bank, in which advocate Terry Motau called him a “kingpin” in the scam, expunged.
Former ethekwini mayor Zandile Gumede is fighting fraud and corruption charges for her role in a corrupt Durban Solid Waste refuse collection contract valued at R320million. The case is expected to go to trial this year. She tendered her resignation in 2019, under pressure from the ANC leadership in Kwazulunatal, but withdrew it a week later. She was finally removed for poor management of the municipality.
Gumede was however given the allclear by the ANC’S provincial integrity committee in December. She is currently a member of the provincial
legislature and is set to again run for the position of chairperson of the ANC’S ethekwini region, the biggest ANC region in the country, which wields significant clout at national conferences.
The same provincial integrity committee allowed the ANC’S deputy chairperson in Kwazulu-natal, Mike Mabuyakhulu, to return to his position in 2020 though he was charged with corruption in the R28-million North Sea Jazz Festival case that will go to trial in September.
Sindiswa Gomba was fired in February as Eastern Cape MEC for health after she was charged with fraud, corruption and moneylaundering for her alleged role in embezzling some R10-million in Buffalo City municipal funds officially destined for Nelson Mandela’s funeral. But she too remains a member of the provincial legislature.
Buffalo City regional ANC manager Phumlani Mkolo was charged alongside Gomba but has refused to step down.
Teris Ntuthu was suspended in March as the chairperson of the Amathole region and a member of the Eastern Cape provincial executive committee.
The decision followed a report that the Ngqushwa municipality made more than R10-million in bogus payments to swell ANC regional coffers in preparation for the upcoming Amathole regional conference. Ntuthu’s ongoing efforts to challenge his suspension include denying it happened, though he was at the meeting where it was decided.
Kgotso Khumalo, the mayor of the JB Marks municipality in North West, has refused to resign after he was arrested in October for fraud and corruption involving R5-million.
The former mayor of Mangaung, Sarah Mlamleli, is one of Magashule’s co-accused in the asbestos case and may be forced to step down as a member of the Free State provincial executive committee.
The Eastern Cape has shown itself ready to act against officials facing charges, such as Mkolo and Ntuthu, or those convicted of serious crimes, as the case of Andile Lungisa shows.
In late March, 15 party members were reported to the provincial integrity committee after they were charged with crimes that include not only graft but rape and sexual assault.
But the political mood differs in other regions where Magashule’s supporters have greater influence. And his embattled faction plans to hit back at President Cyril Ramaphosa with accusations of “selective morality” and its own list of people implicated in wrongdoing, including Ramaphosa.
The fightback plan was well in place by the time charges of fraud, theft and contravening the Public Finance Management Act were brought against Ramaphosa in February. The charges were laid with the Hawks on the basis of former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe’s claims to the Zondo commission that Ramaphosa had compromised the power utility to help his former business partners.
The Magashule faction also draws on testimony before the commission that ANC chairperson and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and Deputy State Security Minister Zizi Kodwa received money from Bosasa to demand that, for the sake of fairness, they too face sanction. It even clutches at a charge the Democratic Alliance brought against former deputy finance minister Mondli Gungubele when he served as mayor of Ekurhuleni.
But nobody on the faction’s list faces corruption charges and the case against Ramaphosa is predictably privately dismissed in lawenforcement circles as a red herring.