ANC Youth League ‘can afford’ elective conference in March
'We are not going to respond [to] whether [the] ANC has money or not. What we do know is that the ANC Youth League has money,' said task team convener Tandi Mahambehlala.
ANC flag. Picture: Gallo Images/Thapelo Maphakela
The ANC National Youth League task team (NYTT) insists it has money to take the young lions to an elective conference in March despite the ANC’s financial woes.
Speaking at a media briefing on Thursday, NYTT convener Tandi Mahambehlala said their bank balance looked favourable, given the 3,700 branch members which the league had already registered.
“We are not going to respond [to] whether [the] ANC has money or not. What we do know is that the ANC Youth League has money to go to conference. We do have money to take the youth league to congress and it’s enough. As and when the ANC will contribute to the functioning of the Youth League, be it money or not, but the ANC will contribute.”
Last year its coordinator Sibongile Besani told journalists that the ANC would assist the league financially in the lead-up to conference.
He said the league, which was liquidated after failing to pay its creditors, would receive a bailout from its mother body.
“Our assets don’t exceed our liabilities but because we are within the mother body, we know it walks step by step with the youth league so I don’t think we should dislodge the youth league from the ANC.”
In July 2019, the structure was left bankrupt when the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg ruled in favour of then-Western Cape premier Helen Zille, who was seeking payment from a defamation case. It was then forced into liquidation.
The case related to an incident in 2010 when former leaders Julius Malema, Andile Lili and Floyd Shivambu allegedly referred to Zille as a racist.
The structure is currently fighting to have its liquidation rescinded.
Besani said the process of rescinding liquidation was in its final stages.
“Actually liquidation for us is no longer an issue. The courts have got to deal with it because we are good to go with what we owed to our creditors.”
The NEC disbanded the league in July after a faction campaigning for the wing’s collapse threatened to take the matter to court.
At the time, deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said the NEC appointed a task team which had people who had organisational memory “because the only mandate of this task team is to take the youth league to the conference”.
The NEC resolved that the league should convene its conference before February. This date was later changed to March.
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