ANC Limpopo provincial secretary Soviet Lekganyane has warned that the party’s step-aside rule could lose legitimacy if criminally charged treasurer Danny Msiza is allowed to defy the resolution in the province where he refuses to leave his post.
Msiza is accused of being among individuals in the party who allegedly helped facilitate the transfer of funds from Limpopo municipalities into now defunct VBS Mutual Bank bank and its subsequent looting of about R2.3bn.
Msiza and seven others were charged with theft, fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering in the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court. They are expected to appear before the North Gauteng High Court on August for a pretrial hearing.
The municipalities were forbidden by law to have business dealings with VBS Mutual Bank because it is a mutual bank. Municipalities must only deposit public funds into accounts held in commercial banks.
The ANC step-aside rule prescribes that all members formally charged with serious criminal offences, including corruption, must step aside until their matters are resolved by the courts. The same rule has seen ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule being booted out of his post after he also refused to step aside.
Lekganyane, who has written a second letter to Luthuli House, ANC head office, asking for intervention in the Msiza matter, told Sowetan he had sent letters to Msiza and other ANC members who had been formally charged to ask them to step aside on May 3.
He indicated that [Msiza] had since refused to leave his post in the party and no action has been taken against him for his defiance as the party structure in the province remains deeply divided over the step-aside policy. Limpopo ANC is therefore divided over Msiza, with his supporters vehemently, include some in the top brass, defending him.
“If deviations are allowed in the implementation of the rule it will make it difficult for other people to comply with it,” Lekganyane said.
Lekganyane said it was now up to the ANC national executive committee (NEC) to decide what to do with the Limpopo provincial executive over its refusal to implement the step-aside rule.
“The step-aside rule is the decision of the NEC and they have to make sure that their decisions are implemented. There is nothing which I have not done as a provincial secretary, including writing letters to all affected comrades,” Lekganyane said.
He said he had told ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte again last week that Msiza was refusing to go and that the party’s provincial working committee (PWC) was protecting him, using a legal opinion he presented which said it would be “double jeopardy” to remove him. Msiza was removed for almost two years in 2018 before the step-aside guidelines were formulated this year.
“After I sent him the letter that he must step aside the PEC said I must write to the NEC to request that he must not step aside because he has stepped aside before,” Lekganyane said.
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe did not respond to Sowetan’s request for say on the matter.
Two Limpopo provincial executive committee members and an NEC member indicated that the party’s provincial executive committee could be disbanded over its defiance on the Msiza matter.
“These comrades of Limpopo are just trying the hand of the NEC,” the NEC member said.
Rule 19 of the ANC constitution says the PEC is obligated to “carry out the decisions and instructions” of upper structures.
Lekganyane said his office was now prevented from suspending Msiza as the PWC and the PEC did not agree with his removal, even after the party had reiterated the call for his removal this month.
“I can’t just wake up and suspend a person without a procedure. It must be a directive of the PEC or the PWC,” he said. He said the NEC had pointed out that four Eastern Cape leaders fingered in the Nelson Mandela funeral scandal had also been booted out twice.
Lekganyane lamented that provincial’s secretaries were being personally accused of factionalism by affected members for implementing the step-aside rule.
A PEC member aligned to Msiza said it would be a miscarriage of justice if the provincial treasurer was forced to step aside or suspended.
“We argue that it would be a double jeopardy because the party’s integrity commission initially recommended that he should step aside and later the NEC reinstated him. He can’t be punished twice for the same matter, it’s unconstitutional,” he said.
Another PEC member supporting his axing said the NEC guidelines were clear on the step-aside resolution and it was non-negotiable.
“If the PEC continue and refuse to implement the rule, the NEC will not have a choice but to disband it,” he said. — Additional reporting by Peter Ramothwala
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