Top ANC officials want suspended ANC Secretary-general Ace Magashule to apologise for serving President Cyril Ramaphosa with a suspension letter, allegedly without any authority to do so.
The order was announced by Ramaphosa yesterday, when he spelt out the outcome of the party’s three-day special national executive committee (NEC) meeting.
Ramaphosa, who spoke on a virtual platform, said the ANC NEC has given Magashule a certain time frame within which to apologise and, if he fails to do so, the NEC would institute disciplinary charges against him.
The ANC placed him on suspension on 3 May.
In his suspension letter, ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte stipulated the conditions, including an order not to carry out the duties and responsibilities of his office as secretary-general of the ANC.
However, on 5 May Magashule wrote a suspension letter to Ramaphosa, saying: “I have also, in accordance with the powers invested in me as the secretary of the ANC, and in full compliance with the relevant conference resolutions, summarily suspended the president of the ANC, comrade Cyril Ramaphosa.
“This is done in terms of Resolution 8.2 of the 54th ANC national conference, which states that ‘every cadre accused of, or reported to be involved in, corrupt practices accounts to the ANC integrity committee immediately, or faces disciplinary processes’.”
He also lifted his own suspension, but was removed from the ANC NEC’s virtual meeting on Saturday, when he tried to be part of it.
Magashule and ANC NEC member Bongani Bongo are both facing criminal charges of fraud and corruption in the Bloemfontein and Nelspruit Magistrates’ Courts respectively.
Meanwhile, Duarte will take over as ANC secretary-general.
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