Pretoria - The faction within the Tshwane regional executive committee (REC) gunning for the heads of leader Dr Kgosi Maepa and secretary Eugene “Bonzo” Modise is believed to have the backing of senior party provincial executive committee (PEC) members.
Maepa and Modise are accused of not consulting with their comrades on the appointment of councillors.
The Pretoria News has reliably learnt that the PEC members in question include Human Settlements, Urban Planning and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Lebogang Maile, Infrastructure Development MEC Tasneem Motara, and the Gauteng ANC provincial spokesperson Bones Modise.
It is believed that they were part of a virtual meeting where a resolution was taken to overturn the decisions by Maepa, Modise and caucus chief whip in council Aaron Maluleka on the recent replacement and appointments of councillors.
A screenshot of a meeting showed that Motara, Maile and Modise were among the participants.
The meeting that took place on February 4 went ahead behind the back of Maepa and Modise, who had contested the constitutionality of the political gathering.
According to the pair, the chairperson of the ANC in Tshwane and the party’s regional secretary were supposed to convene the meeting, in line with the party's constitution.
In absentia, Modise came under scathing attack for allegedly grossly misrepresenting facts in the organisational report and the minutes of the most recent meetings. He flatly denied the allegations, saying they were baseless and untrue.
The Pretoria News was told by sources within the REC that Motara allegedly never objected to the constitutionality of the meeting because she wanted to consolidate her support in Tshwane ahead of the Gauteng ANC elective conference next year, where she is expected to contest for the position of provincial treasurer.
Motara's spokesperson Bongiwe Gumba declined to comment on the claims, saying she would not speak about MEC's political activities.
“As you can imagine, you are asking me about issues relating to the political activities of the MEC. As a result, I will not be commenting any further on this matter. It is outside my responsibility,” she said.
The sources, who did not want to be named, said Maile concurred with the running of the meeting because he was allegedly banking on the support of the ANC Youth League in Tshwane to replace premier David Makhura as the next ANC provincial chairperson in 2022.
Maile's spokesperson Castro Ngobese said: "This an internal ANC matter, not related to his government responsibilities, as MEC. Kindly direct the query to the ANC provincial secretary Jacob Khawe or spokesperson Bones Modise.“
Modise never responded to numerous calls and questions sent to him through WhatsApp.
Tshwane ANC Youth League secretary Ratshi Mashamba said the attitudes of the senior PEC members at the meeting was "very organisational“.
“Their attitude was very organisational. In essence, when you are deployed, you don't speak a lot because you oversee the work. If there is a matter we are raising, they will argue that this is how we organisationally embark on this. When there are differences, they rely on the constitution and other guiding documents," he said.
He said Motara was in attendance as an elected PEC member deployed to Tshwane.
"In fact, there are six comrades deployed to Tshwane. She is a chairperson of deployees. Five deployees of the ANC PEC were in attendance, and only one sent an apology,“ Mashamba said.
Regarding allegations that both Motara and Maile wanted to consolidate their support in Tshwane, he said: “There are people who would want to open a succession battle while we are discharging our organisational responsibilities.
“The provincial conference is only due next year in July, that is like 18 months from now. You will understand that a week in politics is a very long time."
He, however, said it was not untoward for people to raise names of former leaders and that "the ANC Youth League will not distance itself from its former leaders.“
Pretoria News