President Cyril Ramaphosa participates in a dialogue with Colin Coleman, Goldman Sachs' Sub-Saharan Africa's Chief Executive Officer, at the Goldman Sachs' investor conference at the Four Seasons Hotel, The Westcliff in Johannesburg. PHOTO: GCIS
African National Congress (ANC) MPL elect Cameron Dugmore has laid charges against a Twitter account that “has been spreading defamatory and scurrilous claims about me”.
In a statement, Dugmore said the Twitter account is under the name @NotPremierZille and that he laid the charges at the Rondebosch Police Station, in Cape Town, “against the individual/s who operate the Twitter account”.
“Among the many malicious and unfounded allegations made by this faceless account, which I had elected to ignore until now, is the highly divisive claim that I was party to a plot to undermine the leadership of President [Cyril] Ramaphosa during the Provincial and National Government Elections campaign. Through these allegations, the holder/s of this account have unlawfully, intentionally and seriously impaired my dignity in the public domain, hence my decision to formally lay charges and allow the law to take its rightly course. I have also reported this account to Twitter and awaiting a report in that regard,” the statement reads.
Dugmore further said the Twitter account sought to mischievously accuse ANC Gaby Shapiro branch, where his “membership resides”, of having benefitted from misappropriated funds during the elections campaign.
“These baseless allegations, which the branch has publicly distanced itself from, hurt the image of the organisation thereby bringing the ANC into disrepute.
“What is most concerning is that at a time when activists of the ANC in the Western Cape ought to be doing serious introspection about the renewal, unity and rebuilding the organisation, others have elected to become an antithesis to this project,” the statement reads.
Dugmore added that the ANC’s performance at the provincial polls in the Western Cape indicate that the people of the province “have not completely regained confidence in the ANC in the province and our immediate concern ought to be how we rebuild from that. Therefore, internal conflict such as that brewed by this derogatory account only damages our integrity and Brand ANC”.
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