Corruption to dominate agenda at ANC meeting
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The ANC is set to go into a critical meeting this weekend in which it will have to determine how it deals with members who are accused of corruption, less than a week after its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, drew a line in the sand to isolate corrupt officials.
The corruption is now so deep in the party that Ramaphosa took the unprecedented step of writing a letter to the ANC’s more than a million members, promising them that the party will take steps to deal with it.
The move indicates how severely stung Ramaphosa has been by the latest corruption revelations, which have exposed high-profile ANC members, including people close to him.
The letter, endorsed by the national working committee (NWC) on Monday, will now be presented at the meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) this weekend.
In the letter, Ramaphosa spelt out in no uncertain terms that the ANC and its leaders stood accused of corruption.
“The ANC may not stand alone in the dock, but it does stand as Accused No 1.”
Before the letter was sent out this week, the party was in damage-control mode as allegations of corruption related to Covid-19 relief funds surfaced. Public anger has been rising as a result of it, and it has the ability to damage the ANC at the polls in 2021.
It was against this backdrop that the party’s national officials were tasked in the previous meeting of the NEC in July to immediately prepare an audited list of cases and submit this list within one month to the NWC and the NEC, with recommendations for action.
This list will be presented at this weekend’s meeting.
Heated meeting expected
The NEC meeting is set to be heated, with calls expected to be made for MP Bongani Bongo, who is a portfolio committee chair in parliament, and former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede, now a KwaZulu-Natal MPL, to step down from their positions as they face corruption charges.
Andile Lungisa, who is a councillor in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, may also be in the firing line, as he has been found guilty of assault.
Gumede’s appointment to the legislature as an MPL last week raised public ire, as it followed declarations by the NEC after its last meeting that it was committed to draw a “clear line between our organisation and those who steal from the people”.
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The corruption is now so deep in the party that Ramaphosa took the unprecedented step of writing a letter to the ANC’s more than a million members, promising them that the party will take steps to deal with it.
The move indicates how severely stung Ramaphosa has been by the latest corruption revelations, which have exposed high-profile ANC members, including people close to him.
The letter, endorsed by the national working committee (NWC) on Monday, will now be presented at the meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) this weekend.
In the letter, Ramaphosa spelt out in no uncertain terms that the ANC and its leaders stood accused of corruption.
“The ANC may not stand alone in the dock, but it does stand as Accused No 1.”
Before the letter was sent out this week, the party was in damage-control mode as allegations of corruption related to Covid-19 relief funds surfaced. Public anger has been rising as a result of it, and it has the ability to damage the ANC at the polls in 2021.
It was against this backdrop that the party’s national officials were tasked in the previous meeting of the NEC in July to immediately prepare an audited list of cases and submit this list within one month to the NWC and the NEC, with recommendations for action.
This list will be presented at this weekend’s meeting.
Heated meeting expected
The NEC meeting is set to be heated, with calls expected to be made for MP Bongani Bongo, who is a portfolio committee chair in parliament, and former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede, now a KwaZulu-Natal MPL, to step down from their positions as they face corruption charges.
Andile Lungisa, who is a councillor in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, may also be in the firing line, as he has been found guilty of assault.
Gumede’s appointment to the legislature as an MPL last week raised public ire, as it followed declarations by the NEC after its last meeting that it was committed to draw a “clear line between our organisation and those who steal from the people”.
A ...