ANC members march against regional secretary
HUNDREDS of ANC members in the Far North Region marched to their regional office on Thursday to hand over a memorandum.
The members are aggrieved about the socalled ‘uncultured culture’ which they claim has occurred at all branches during branch general meetings (BGMs).
One of the protest leaders, Herbert Ngubane accused regional secretary, Sphile Mdaka of abusing his powers as head of deployment.
‘Our secretary deploys the same Regional Executive Committee (REC) members to branches, and is not allowing a space of equal responsibility among members of the REC.
'We believe he does so to safeguard his interest in being elected as regional chair at the next regional congress.
‘This tendency has not only resulted in the forming of factions, but it has reached the point of dividing branches within the region,’ Ngubane said.
Ngubane claims that when these REC members are deployed to branches to oversee the processes, they arrive with heavily-armed security guards which intimidate voters.
‘They also fire shots in the air and allegedly inform some branch members to cause chaos when they realise the outcome of votes will not be in their favour.
‘They also expropriate the voters' roll and convene parallel BGMs, and take pictures to post on social media platforms to cause chaos and confusion on these platforms.
‘This has not only misled the society at large, but also signals a high-level of thuggery and ill-discipline.
‘We believe there are members who act bigger than our organisation, and who are selfcentred,’ he said.
Ngubane said they have lost faith and confidence in the REC and Provincial Executive Committee (PEC), as both structures are conflicted through individuals' behaviour.
‘We request intervention from the National Executive Committee (NEC) in this matter,’ he said.
Regional secretary, Sphile Mdaka refuted the allegations against him, saying they are baseless.
‘We have assigned and deployed all our members to oversee the BGM.
'Their duties are to oversee the running of these meetings, and advise branches when necessary.
'They do not get involved in other activities. ‘We have had a few incidents where some branch members would arrive at the BGM intoxicated and cause havoc. In those cases, we used to involve the police,’ Mdaka said.
ANC provincial secretary, Mdumiseni Ntuli said it has come to their attention that some of their members staged a protest in Mkhuze.
‘We urge all our members to use the correct channels to raise their concerns so we can intervene, rather than bring the ANC into disrepute.
'As the PEC, we have not received any complaints from these members against their regional secretary.
'It is unfair to conclude that the PEC is biased on this matter as it is news to us,’ Ntuli said.