Durban - Outspoken ANC MP and former Msunduzi Municipality deputy mayor Mervyn Dirks says he has no desire to leave the ANC or join any other parties.
Dirks, who has been one of ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa’s staunchest critics, told The Mercury he would remain loyal to his oath of office and if he felt any of the party’s leaders have broken the law, he would not hesitate to call them to order.
“I do not think about leaving the ANC, because it has been my political home for all of my life. For me the ANC is the best vehicle through which people’s lives can improve,” said Dirks yesterday.
The MP stressed that he would remain committed to the truth.
“The fact is that when taking the oath of public office I undertook to stand for the truth. People should stand for the truth and in expressing my views about the president I was standing for the truth,” said the MP.
There have been questions about Dirks and some of his colleagues’ future political prospects in the ruling party as they have been critical of Ramaphosa over the Phala Phala farm scandal.
After Ramaphosa’s resounding victory at the ANC elective conference in December, many have said that the president was now in a powerful position to deal with his critics within the party.
Dirks is one of a few ANC MPs who refused to toe the party line and voted in favour of the adoption of the Section 89 independent panel report on Phala Phala which would have set in motion an impeachment inquiry against Ramaphosa.
Other MPs include Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Supra Mahumapelo and Mosebenzi Zwane.
Fikile Mbalula, ANC secretary-general, said the matter of the MPs had been handed over to the party’s disciplinary committee.
Dirks said he was not bothered about this as he believed he had not done anything wrong and insisted that he had no personal grudge against Ramaphosa.
He expressed his belief that former president Jacob Zuma had been the best leader in the ANC, and listed the roll out of antiretrovirals to those with HIV as a significant achievement by the government under Zuma.
“The black industrialists programme was introduced under Zuma and so was free tertiary education,” he said.
“Ramaphosa is not the problem, but it is the system that is powerful and resistant to change which is the problem, and presents challenges.”
Demonstrating his loyalty, the MP yesterday posted images on social media of himself campaigning for the ruling party in Northdale, Pietermaritzburg, in the run-up to a by-election set for next week.