An Eastern Cape ANC ward councillor is in hot water after a voice note of her swearing at a fellow ANC branch leader went viral over the weekend.
In the voice note, the Buffalo City Metro (BCM) ward 41 ANC councillor Sindiswa Skepe, could be heard spitting insults at Khaya Mabhece ANC branch chair Mlungiseleli Ncapayi.
She accuses Ncapayi of sowing divisions in their branch and of not doing enough in campaigning for the ANC ahead of next week’s national general election.
Ncapayi confirmed the incident, saying at the centre of the cold war between him and the councillor, were allegations that Skepe hired her friends and failed to outline the processes she had used when hiring people for the expanded public works project.
“We called her to a meeting, but the ward councillor was unable to respond to our concerns, instead she sent two voice notes to the branch executive’s WhatsApp group insulting me.
“I’ve been pleading with her to address whatever she wants directly with me as ANC branch chairman in that ward, and not send voice notes. But she continues to swear at me.
“We are left with no choice but to ask the ANC to deal with this. We can’t continue having an ANC deployee who behaves like this,” said Ncapayi.
When contacted for comment on Monday, Skepe said she was in class and that “I can’t talk right now”.
Head of ANC provincial executive committee (PEC) deployees to BCM, Loyiso Magqashela, confirmed to the Dispatch on Monday that the Dr WB Rubusana regional ANC structure had filed a complaint.
He said the region had asked the ANC PEC to investigate events leading to Skepe allegedly using foul language in that voice note, while confronting Ncapayi.
Magqashela said the “embarrassing” voice note was also forwarded to the provincial ANC headquarters by several concerned ANC members.
“No action has been taken yet because we have been busy preparing for the president’s (Cyril Ramaphosa) visit to the province. However, now that we have dealt with that programme, we have to report the case to the top five officials to give us guidance.“We have to grill all those implicated in this embarrassing recording because in that voice note, the name of the ANC is at the centre and those implicated in this are also ANC members.“We are not going to allow a situation in which, when people have no control over their emotions, they drag the name of the ANC through the mud,” said Magqashela.He added: “Now that the region and some concerned ANC members have reported this, we have to investigate it and hold anyone implicated in any wrongdoing to account.”Skepe had not responded to a text message with questions by the time of writing on Monday...