ANC and Phosa settle conflict

The ANC and former party treasurer-general Mathews Phosa have reached an out-of-court settlement in which Luthuli House will send a task team to Mpumalanga to investigate all complaints raised by aggrieved members in the province.

This after the ANC headquarters invited a delegation led by Ronnie Malomane, the first applicant, and consisting of other applicants and representatives of the aggrieved ANC branches, to discuss the matter in Johannesburg on Monday.

Both sides were represented by their legal counsels, but Phosa did not attend. As a result of the agreement, Phosa’s team withdrew the urgent application it submitted to the High Court in Johannesburg.

Instead the agreement is expected to be turned into an order of the court by judge Edwin Molahlehi. Malomane said Luthuli House wanted to know their grievances so that an amicable solution could be found.

The ANC agreed to send an NEC task team to Mpumalanga to address issues the aggrieved members raised such as membership irregularities, infighting, gatekeeping and everything that happened during the branch general meetings and provincial general council.

Yesterday, Advocate Dali Mpofu, for the applicants, told the court the two parties “have found each other” on the matter.

In the application, Malomane and others asked the High Court in Johannesburg to nullify the recent Mpumalanga regional general council.

They cited ANC provincial chairperson David Mabuza, the provincial ANC and Luthuli House in the application. Initially the group demanded the “unity” delegates should not be allowed to attend or vote for specific candidates at the national conference.

The applicants also asked the court to declare the PGC where 330 branches voted for “unity”, “null and void, unlawful and unconstitutional”.

But this appeared to have been abandoned. Outside court, ANC Mpumalanga provincial secretary Mandla Ndlovu confirmed the meeting but denied an agreement was reached.

Ndlovu said they did not agree to the demand that Luthuli House should send a task team to investigate in the province.

“They withdrew because they had no winnable case. That we met with him is true, but there was no agreement, they realised that it was tough,” Ndlovu said.

But Phosa denied they withdrew the matter, just the urgency of it. It would still be a court matter via a order of the court.

In a separate matter, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma supporters who challenged the legitimacy of the newly-elected provincial leadership lost the case in the Grahamstown High Court yesterday.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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