EThekiwini ANC, Mavuso at loggerheads

FRESH from butting heads with Scopa (Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts) chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa over alleged ANC interference in Eskom affairs, Busisiwe Mavuso is now under fire from the ANC in the eThekwini region.

The regional structure of the governing party has slammed Mavuso for allegedly calling its newly re-elected chairperson, Zandile Gumede, a “thief”.

In a podcast with Ashraf Garda of Salaamedia, Mavuso, who is also the chief executive of Business Unity South Africa and an Eskom board member, said: “If you still going to appoint a Zandile Gumede who is a thief in eThekwini … what do you think it is going to happen within government?”

She was commenting on the need to have capable and honest people leading the government in order to have a capable state.

Gumede is currently facing a litany of corruption charges emanating from the R320 million eThekwini metro waste tender, which was issued in 2017 on her behest while she was still the mayor.

The corruption trial is set down for oral evidence hearing at the Pietermaritzburg High Court in July this year and Gumede has denied the charges.

In a hard-hitting statement late on Tuesday, the eThekwini region said the attack on Gumede was unwarranted as Gumede has been investigated for four years, during which she has proclaimed her innocence.

It said as a disciplined cadre of the ANC, she resigned as the mayor of eThekwini Metro and stepped aside.

“Critically, she has never missed a day in court since she was arrested early in May and charged only around May 22-23, 2020. It was the NPA’s inability to proceed with prosecution as they had to finalise their documentary evidence that led to the case being delayed for this long,” the region said in a statement.

Furthermore, it said it was bizarre that Mavuso attacked Gumede and others while she was silent about “rampant corruption in the private sector” where she comes from.

“Ms Mavuso has decided to convict her without allowing jurisprudence to reach such a conclusion and going further to publicly defame her character by labelling her a thief while having never been found guilty of such in court.”