ANC provincial secretary Deshi Ngxanga believes that the application is an attempt to “destabilise the Province”
THE URGENT court application by ANC members to interdict the party’s Northern Cape provincial conference is expected to be heard in the Gauteng High Court.
ANC provincial chairperson Dr Zamani Saul indicated during the ZF Mgcawu regional conference that was held this past weekend that the provincial conference would take place in the Namakwa District on May 28.
The court application seeks to declare the ANC Frances Baard regional conference, which was held from May 7-9, unlawful, unconstitutional and in breach of the ANC constitution.
According to the ANC members, the matter should be heard on May 20 as the provincial conference would take place in the near future, where they only learnt of the date of the provincial conference on April 23.
The branch members allege that there was gatekeeping, that the membership numbers were manipulated and branches were misrepresented at the regional conferences.
They will also argue that the term of the regional executive committees in the Northern Cape had expired and therefore they have no legal standing and were not in a position to elect or nominate delegates to attend the provincial conference.
Discrepancies were highlighted that occurred in the Frances Baard, ZF Mgcawu and Dikgatlong districts as well as the Dawid Kruiper sub-region, the Sida Saas branch, Andries Jonkers branch in the Kai Garib sub-region and the Patrick Scheepers branch, dating back to 2019, which were reported but “ignored”.
It was advised that the branch members had exhausted all internal remedies, where disputes were referred at branch level as well as to the national dispute resolution committee.
“The purpose of interdicting the provincial conference is to avoid the continuation and further distortion of the democratic processes of the ANC at the branch, regional, provincial and national level.
“The Frances Baard regional conference was contaminated by a plethora of procedural improprieties which rendered it fatally defective. These defects will as a corollary taint and contaminate the imminent provincial conference.
“Once the provincial executive committee is elected the ANC members in the Northern Cape will be presided over and governed by an irregularly elected leadership.
“Further conferences will proceed to the national conference which will also stand to be contaminated by the impropriety and distortion of democracy.”
ANC provincial secretary Deshi Ngxanga said that they would oppose the application.
“We have enough documentation on our side to prove that all processes were followed. We assured the national executive committee that the Province has the capacity to deal with the court matter.
“We are at an advanced stage of submitting court documents by May 20 and have appointed Mjila and Partners attorneys as our legal representatives. We are still waiting for a court date.”
Ngxanga believed that the application was an attempt to “destabilise the Province”.
“The matter should have been heard in the Northern Cape High Court as all the applicants are residing in the Frances Baard District. It appears as if funding is being made available to the applicants from outside the Province, which is why the application was filed at the Gauteng High Court, which is outside the jurisdiction of the Province.”
Ngxanga admitted that the matter would have additional cost implications due to travel and accommodation expenses of the legal team.
“However, we cannot leave this matter unattended.”
DFA
