Pretoria - A Limpopo ANC branch has threatened to interdict the party’s 55th national elective conference after its branch general meeting (BGM) held to nominate delegates was allegedly manipulated to include illegal and absent members, including a dead person.
The Rolihlahla branch in Makhado Ward 6 in the Vhembe Region initially lodged a complaint with the provincial dispute resolution committee chaired by provincial executive committee (PEC) member and Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba, but its dispute was dismissed.
The high stakes conference, in which President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing a challenge from former health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, is scheduled for December 16 to 20.
In a letter seen by the Pretoria News, the reason given for the dismissal was that the branch had not followed ANC procedures.
The letter signed by Ramathuba read in part: “The dispute dismissed. The complainant did not follow the ANC guidelines in lodging the disputes.
“If you are not satisfied with the verdict you have a right to appeal to the national dispute resolution committee.”
The dispute relates to accusation by branch members that there was fraud during the branch general meeting on October 1 during their nomination process.
The disputed BGM nominated Ramaphosa as a presidential candidate.
Branch activist and member Patrick Sikhutshi accused five members who included the branch’s chairperson Tumelo Seleka and secretary Rendani Muswobi of making up the numbers by scanning identity documents of people without their knowledge and fraudulently verifying numbers with the names.
Speaking to the Pretoria News yesterday, Sikhutshi said there was no branch general meeting that took place and they were looking into going to court about the matter.
“We first thought we need to exhaust all internal processes; we will most definitely have to consider the matter of court seriously.
“We can’t have a situation where the leadership of the ANC that happens to be the leadership of the country is elected by bogus and illegitimate candidates.”
He said that a preliminary report read that there were more than 170 people at the meeting, while it was only 12, with the five sitting in the car and cooking up the numbers.
Sikhutshi said that the rest of them were shocked when it was announced that there was a successful branch general meeting.
“These people did not only scan IDs of members without them knowing, but they even made a mistake of scanning an ID of a person who died on September 19 and was buried five days later.”
Sikhutshi added that they claimed the same dead person attended the branch general meeting.
He blamed Ramathuba for not investigating and doing due diligence, saying she should have been more concerned about the alleged dead person who also “voted”.
Moswobi dismissed Sikhutshi’s assertions and said that the branch general meeting was successfully held.
Responding to questions from the Pretoria News Ramathuba said: “The complainant understands the internal processes available to deal with any matter he might be aggrieved with, and the ANC cannot be expected to deal with court matters through the media.”
Sikhutshi is appealing for the general meeting to be declared null and void and its nominations not to be considered.
He has also accused the delegates going to the conference of being illegitimate and called for a fraud investigation.
Another glaring dispute was lodged by Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu at the weekend following the nomination announcement by the party’s electoral committee chairperson Kgalema Motlanthe last week.
Sisulu wrote that the filed nominations did not correlate with data given during the announcement.
In the letter, she is requesting to see the raw data and demanding to know what happened to the list of candidates.
The Free State conference is also under threat, with two of its factions in the Mangaung region holding two parallel conferences after one group tried to interdict the other.
The judge had initially found that the Friday interdict was not urgent.
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe ignored questions from the Pretoria News on Sikhutshi’s allegations that bogus and illegitimate delegates took part in the BGM, including a dead person.
Pretoria News