DA Western Cape leader and Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela has defended his complaint against the party's former youth leader Mbali Ntuli, saying the KwaZulu-Natal member of the provincial legislature must be taken to task for “liking” a Facebook post calling Premier Helen Zille a racist.
Ntuli, a Zille critic, was charged on Friday for breaching the party's social media policy.
This despite the party’s investigation report by DA’s member of Federal Legal Council (FLC) Alan McLoughlin finding there was no evidence to support an allegation that Ntuli’s actions “publicly opposed the party's principles or repeatedly opposed published party policies”.
According to the document, which the Cape Times has seen, it was Ntuli’s reaction to the post that gave rise to Madikizela requesting the FLC to investigate a possible charge of misconduct.
When liking the post last year, Madikizela believed that Ntuli had indicated her agreement with the sentiment and failed to protect a colleague of high profile within the party, thereby breaching the provisions of the DA’s Constitution Social Media Policy and thus rendering herself “guilty of misconduct”, said the document dated April 11, 2017.
McLoughlin said there was no evidence to suggest Ntuli did not carefully consider the content and potential risks involved before reposting the Huffington Post article or posting her own comments thereon. His report said there was also no direct evidence to suggest that Ntuli’s post was insulting, derogatory, insensitive or unnecessarily offensive in nature.
It said there was no evidence to suggest that Ntuli’s behaviour was unreasonable and whether it was detrimental to internal co-operation within the party was debatable.
“Her actions could, in some caucuses, even have had the effect of improving internal co-operation depending on the opinions of the various members of each caucus.”
The report recommended that no further action be taken against Ntuli in the matter. “The documentary evidence presented would not be sufficient to ensure a conviction of misconduct against her by a disciplinary panel. Even if the documentary evidence was augmented with vive voce evidence it is unlikely that the result would be any different, as the facts are all contained in the documentary evidence submitted.
"It is also submitted that a finding of not guilty against her would cause more harm than good to the party at this time,” said the report.
Ntuli told the Cape Times she would be meeting with her lawyers to discuss the matter tomorrow. Madikizela said the move to lay a complaint against Ntuli was not linked to Zille’s tweet about colonialism.
Zille faces the axe for allegedly violating the DA’s social media policy after she, while waiting to board a plane from Johannesburg, insinuated in a tweet that colonialism was not all bad.
Madikizela said he witnessed a “twitter storm” erupting on Saturday about his involvement in a case against Ntuli, where he was being accused of defending Zille.
“Mbali Ntuli’s case has nothing to do with Helen Zille’s colonialism tweet, it was first raised with Federal Council Chairperson, James Selfe on the 1st of February and formally lodged on the 13 of February for investigation, a month before Helen Zille went to Singapore and her subsequent tweet on the 15th of March,” he said. “The complaint arises from a post on Ntuli’s Facebook page, after she had posted an article from the Huffington Post on December 23, 2016. The Huffington Post article was about a series of what they termed 'problematic statements' that Helen Zille has 'gotten away with'.
"Ntuli then commented on the article, bemoaning the so-called 'double standards' applied in the party to different people who make comments on social media that are deemed by the DA to be inappropriate. On Ntuli’s Facebook page, this article led to a series of comments by various people, many of a racist nature,” he said.
Madikizela said the incident happened months after the party charged Dianne Kohler-Barnard for reposting a Facebook post - an incident that, in his view, was similar to Ntuli’s.
“I must make it categorically clear that my complaint was not about the content of Mbali’s post, or her views, but about violation of the party’s media policy."