ANC North West PEC summoned to Luthuli House amid tensions with top leaders

The ANC North West provincial executive committee (PEC) was summoned to the party headquarters yesterday amid tensions between the structure and the top leadership.

This after ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula instructed that an investigation be conducted into alleged irregularities during the ANC Kenneth Kaunda regional conference held in a game reserve near Klerksdorp in June.

‘Process rushed’

Some aggrieved delegates wrote to Luthuli House and the PEC claiming the process was rushed, and credentials and logistics were not properly done. Also, the conference proceedings were allegedly manipulated to achieve an outcome that favoured the PEC. They also claimed calls for its postponement were ignored by the session chair.

ALSO READ: Plan by ANC councillors to remove municipal manager in North West ‘could backfire’

But the PEC – which is also called “N12” – opposed the investigation and vowed to take the issue to Luthuli House in what some saw as an overreach in provincial affairs by the party’s national executive committee (NEC).

Mbalula ‘must back off’

In a voice clip circulating in ANC WhatsApp groups, provincial deputy secretary Viola Motsumi suggested that the PEC should tell Mbalula and the convenor of the NEC deployee to the North West, Soviet Lekganyane, to back off from provincial matters.

ALSO READ: ANC Women’s League conference postponed again due to unresolved branch disputes

The PEC accused the duo of being a stumbling block in the PEC’s attempt to control ANC regional structures in the province and undertook to stop them in their tracks.

PEC will show ANC NEC ‘there are leaders in North West’

The PEC is unhappy with the NEC decision to rerun the elective regional conference in the Kenneth Kaunda region and will resist it. They vowed to show the NEC that “there is leadership in the North West”.

In the recording, Motsumi was scathing in her criticism of Mbalula and Lekganyane. She described Lekganyane as a problem in the North West and asked him to “back off”.

ALSO READ: ANC election manifestos ‘not grounded on services anticipated in SA’s constitution’