Johannesburg - Former deputy minister of higher education Mduduzi Manana has resigned as an ANC member of Parliament.
Manana's resignation comes a day before he was set to be facing a hearing by Parliament's ethics committee into his conduct involving his assault of three women at a Joburg nightclub.
“I have decided to voluntarily withdraw my membership from the National Assembly after almost 10 years of active participation in parliamentary politics,” he said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
He was recently booed by delegates at the Gauteng ANC elective conference at the weekend.
In September last year video footage surfaced of him assaulting three women at Cubana nightclub. He pleaded guilty and was convicted on three counts of assault with intent to do previous bodily harm.
He served no jail time for the incident but was fined. He resigned as the deputy minister days after the incident emerged but remained an MP and was recently elected into the ANC highest decision-making structure the national executive committee.
News of Manana's latest assault attack surfaced earlier this year, when his then-domestic worker Christine Wiro opened an assault case at the Douglasdale Police Station.
Wiro said Manana pushed her down a flight of stairs and accused her stealing from him and letting strangers into his house.
She had only been on the job for two weeks, but Manana had threatened to deport her back to Zimbabwe through his connections.
Wiro has since dropped the charges laid against him and cited fear as the reason why she could not peruse the case.
Manana issued a statement denying the assault allegations. He said Wiro and her family had tried to blackmail him for R1 million and that he will sue the family.
The former deputy minister said he was reluctant to resign as MP as he waited for the NPA to rule on whether it would institute charges against him. He still maintains that he is not guilty of assault on this matter.
The NPA said on Monday that it would not prosecute Manana as there was no reasonable prospect of success.
“I need to reiterate that the allegations against me were obviously frivolous and were rooted in a politically motivated smear campaign against me by my political opponents. I welcome the decision of the NPA which has cleared me of any wrong doing and I feel totally exonerated,” said Manana.
Manana has been an MP for close to 10 years.
He said he will now be focusing on his academic career, political organisation ahead of next year's elections and business interests.
He said he will be donating parts of his pension to various organisations and scholarship opportunities for young students.
Manana said he will donate R1 million to Khuluma Ndoda (a men’s social movement against gender-based violence and R500 000 Ncedulunthu Youth Foundation, an organisation that provides young girls with sanitary packs.