ANC sends officials to whip Western Cape PEC into shape

Cape Town – The ANC has parachuted two members of its national executive committee (NEC) into the Western Cape to whip its structures back into shape.

The arrival of Sue van der Merwe and Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba comes after provincial chairperson, Marius Fransman, was asked to step down and provincial secretary, Faiez Jacobs, was suspended.

Fransman is waiting for the outcome of an integrity committee report into allegations that he sexually harassed a young woman on the way to the African National Congress's 104th birthday celebrations in Rustenburg in January. The woman laid charges with police.

Jacobs was accused of hitting a colleague and was suspended.

The ANC's Derek Hanekom, who heads the party's disciplinary committee and is in charge of deployees to the province, said Van der Merwe and Letsatsi-Duba would try and resolve administrative matters, get fundraising going, sort out membership and support acting chairperson, Khaya Magaxa.

Caretaker MECs

Although the two have the power to override the chairperson and deputy secretary general, Hanekom said this was not envisaged.

"In light of certain developments in the province, caretaker MECs will be appointed to assist in the province," said Hanekom at a hastily convened press briefing in the ANCs legislature offices.

The briefing overlapped with Premier Helen Zille's reply to the state of the province address debate, which Magaxa had arrived late for.

Zille had quipped that the empty seat probably meant that no sooner had Magaxa been appointed as acting chairperson in the province, than he had been removed.

Infighting and division

Zille claimed this was because there was infighting and division in the ANC's ranks in the province.

Hanekom said the two NEC members would be in place in the province until national leadership felt the provincial executive committee (PEC) was fully functional again.

There had been a possibility of disbanding the PEC, but the party's national working committee and the NEC decided against this.

He explained that there was no disciplinary action against Fransman because his case was still with the party's integrity commission and law enforcement authorities.

"I am not going to speculate about their work. They will do their work thoroughly... In this case there is a charge that has been laid at a police station. It has to be investigated."

In the case of Jacobs, an internal disciplinary process was initiated and was referred to the national disciplinary committee.

This article first appeared on News24 – see here.