Rivals clash over North West ANC plan

THE ANC in the North West is gearing-up for a provincial general council in April, amid raging conflicts between its rival members.

The council is set to elect a new ANC provincial secretary after former secretary Dakota Legoete was elected to the party’s national executive committee last month.

Chaos erupted when ANC members allegedly supporting the provincial chairperson and Premier Supra Mahumapelo attacked fellow members with a variety of weapons ahead of their launching a “Save North West Campaign” at Ratshidi Hall in Mahikeng.

The launch was disrupted and the hall’s chairs and windows smashed. Cars belonging to the Save North West campaigners were also smashed.

North West police arrested Bafana Nebe, the speaker of the Mahikeng Local Municipality, for his alleged role in the public violence.

Mahumapelo has since condemned the violence and called for calm among his feuding members.

But Mahumapelo’s rivals, who call themselves the Revolutionary Council, want the ANC national office to establish a provincial task team in the North West.

Yesterday, Susanna Dantjie, the ANC’s acting provincial secretary in North West, said their party’s PGC was set to take place on the first weekend of April.

Dantjie said their decision was taken at a special provincial executive committee meeting on Monday at Hartbeespoort Dam.

“This shall be preceded by the convening of branch general meetings to elect delegates to the provincial general council,” Dantjie said.

Insiders told Independent Newspapers that the ANC in the North West was preparing to return its parliamentarian and former Rustenburg mayor Matthew Wolmarans into the provincial leadership fold.

It is believed that the ANC insisted on Wolmarans despite allegations that he was an unlawful recipient of wildlife worth more than R100 million from the North West provincial government.

This prompted the parliamentary portfolio committee on environmental affairs to direct the North West Provincial Department of Rural, Environment and Agricultural Development and MEC Manketsi Tlhape to “reverse a donation of wildlife valued at over R100 million, made to the South African Rare Game Breeders Holdings (SARGBH).”

SARGBH is owned by Wolmarans and his business partner Mike de Kock.

The portfolio committee issued the directive in October last year but the reversal has yet to be done.

Portfolio committee chairperson Philemon Mapulane at the time asked the auditor-general and National Treasury to investigate the SARGBH game donation.

Mapulane also suggested that the costs of the reversal should be recovered from the MEC, her head of department or any persons or entity that might have contributed in these transactions or that may inappropriately benefited.

The ANC in the North West has also announced that the Bojanala regional conference, which was disbanded in December last year by the high court in Mahikeng, will be held before the end of March while the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati regional conference in Vryburg will be held on Saturday.

The Dr Kenneth Kaunda regional conference in Klerksdorp will be held on February 9 and 10.

Wolmarans set to return to leadership