Let me first indicate that I am a member of the ANC in good standing and in writing this letter I am within my constitutional rights accorded to me by the ANC constitution as a member.
I also know that due to entrenched factions within our ANC I am more than likely to be insulted by those who fail to defend the organisation and rather use their efforts in promoting their factional positions and not that of the ANC. I am up for the challenge and ready for the insults.
My ANC has long being seized with the discussions around corruption and how to deal with individuals implicated in such unfortunate and uncalled-for crime against the poor. We further supported all the processes that will help to fight corruption and had also resolved to strengthen the NPA with the sole aim of uprooting corruption at all levels.
Given this background it is therefore important to defend and support all those who are working towards implementation of our resolutions and decisions taken by our organisation. One is encouraged by the firm stance of comrade Mdumiseni Ntuli, the KZN ANC provincial secretary, on his position he articulated at a lecture in KZN on December 20. Ntuli called out our disgraced secretary-general Ace Magashule to be wrong in reneging from the conference resolution on a principle of stepping aside.
That conference resolution was further strengthened by the August 2020 NEC decision.
The integrity commission further pronounced after meeting with the SG for him to step aside (not resign) from his important position as the CEO of the world's oldest liberation movement due to the nature of charges he is facing and also due to the long-held view by some that during his term in the Free State he was the kingpin and the face of state corruption that ensued in that province. He has been mentioned many times in the state capture inquiry by many witnesses as the enabler of corruption and the major link with the corrupt Guptas who have since fled our country.
It is therefore important to call for his immediate stepping aside or forced stepping aside in line with our organisational resolution and decisions. We must also, as the organisation, be able to deal harshly with our leagues and associations who define themselves outside the ANC resolutions. They are the association and leagues of the ANC and therefore must toe the ANC line all the time. Today they are seen as the mouthpiece of a certain faction within the ANC.
We should remember that we have publicly pronounced on our resolutions and NEC decisions on corruption. Society in general is perceiving us as the most corrupt party and were encouraged by our resolutions and decisions in this regard. Should we fail to act on Magashule and his supporters who are also likely to join him in different docks soon, our voters will definitely punish us harshly this time as the warning shots were fired in the last elections. Magashule has no moral standing today to talk on behalf of our people because we firmly believe that the ANC is the people's movement.
He must do one thing he doesn’t stand up for, which is the honour of stepping aside on his own free will. On his failure to do likewise, he must be pushed out.
• Manake is an ANC member in Johannesburg
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