Eastern Cape ANC chairperson Oscar Mabuyane has accused party secretary-general Ace Magashule of being “inconsistent in implementing party decisions”.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Dispatch, Mabu-yane charged that resistance by party members in the province to abide by decisions made by ANC’s provincial executive committee (PEC), “is as a result of assurances from senior national officials when they meet in secret meetings”.
“What we want from the secretary-general’s office is the same kind of spirit in implementing decisions of the ANC in a manner in which is consistent with our 54th national conference resolution, the renewal of the ANC,” he said.
Mabuyane added that Magashule’s actions were adding to “an element of ill-discipline in the organisation”.
“If you have one element which is ill-disciplined, that is a causative factor to a state of instability in the ANC,” Mabuyane said.
Attempts to get comment from Magashule were unsuccessful at the time of writing on Wednesday.
Mabuyane was referring to a decision that the provincial executive took to disband the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (NMBM), OR Tambo and Joe Gqabi regional structures and replace them with task teams, decisions apparently defied by those very structures.
In October, tensions between the provincial executive and the NMBM region reached a boiling point with the region electing to appeal its dissolution.
A week later, at the behest of the regional secretaries of disbanded regions, Magashule overturned the PEC decision in a memorandum to all provinces. In his letter, Magashule said he was aware of regional ANC structures across some provinces being disbanded.
He said the dissolution of regional structures at this time detracted from the unity projectt the organisation had set for itself.
Mabuyane did not take this lying down, telling the Dispatch that Magashule was “misleading”.
“We discussed the matter at length at the last NEC meeting because we can’t have someone sending mixed messages. This letter is the root cause of the anarchy playing out in ANC structures in NMB.”
In a stern warning to those defying party orders, Mabu-yane said the PEC would make it a priority to deal with those “rebelling” against its decisions in their first meeting of the year next week.
“The resistance of some elements when the ANC takes a decision, elements that go elsewhere and sit in very serious meetings with very senior members of the ANC, tells us there is something wrong.”..