Vryburg - ANC Women’s League members in North West have vowed to prevent an ANC member charged with kidnapping and rape from becoming a councillor ahead of the local government elections.
On Tuesday, the ANCWL members protested at the Vryburg Magistrate’s Court against the ANC member, who is also former regional leader of the ANC Youth League.
This was after the 40-year-old man was officially charged with the kidnapping and rape of a 14-year-old girl.
The accused also has a pending charge of malicious damage to property after he and various others, including former Congress of South African Students leader Andrew Babeile, were accused of destroying the property of the Naledi municipality in September last year.
The identity of the accused cannot be published as he has not yet pleaded to the charges against him.
The case was postponed to Monday, when he is set to apply for bail. The accused was a former regional leader of the ANCYL task team in Vryburg after the ANC disbanded the league’s national structure, led by its former leader Julius Malema.
The high-profile arrest on Monday, said ANC North West provincial secretary Dakota Legoete, came after community members complained that they suspected there was a girl locked inside the accused’s house for some time.
“The matter was reported to the police, who contacted the suspect to get the girl released from the house. The suspect, who was at home at the time, ordered his son to go to the house and unlock it.
“He allegedly also ordered his son to claim that the girl was his girlfriend. The boy, however, could not sustain the lie and told the police the whole story,” Legoete said.
ANCWL North West secretary Bridgette Mogakwe made similar comments.
The ANC and its provincial women’s league claimed the accused could be linked to other similar offences.
“The suspect has been accused on a number of occasions of kidnapping girls in the area and sexually molesting them in a house he shared with his children,” Mogakwe claimed.
Legoete and Mogakwe said the accused, whose name is known to The Star, was at the time of his arrest lobbying people to nominate him to become a councillor.
“The ANC does not and will not support any candidate with such criminal behaviour. We are convinced and confident that members of the ANC have made a correct choice by electing individuals with clean records and good behaviour to represent the party in the upcoming local government elections,” Mogakwe said, adding they wanted justice for the girl and her family.
The Star