Cyril must also ‘step aside’ say protesters outside Luthuli House

A group of ANC supporters on Thursday staged a protest outside Luthuli House demanding that the resolutions taken by the ANC’s national general council in 2015 be rigorously implemented.

Centred around the protest is the most controversial issue that hangs over the party’s national executive committee, its “step aside” guidelines.

The group was demanding that the step aside guidelines leave no stone unturned upon its implementation.

They mentioned among others President Cyril Ramaphosa, Fikile Mbalula, Gwede Mantashe, Pravin Gordhan, Senzo Mchunu, Zizi Kodwa and many others implicated in corruption to step aside and clear their names.

“Cyril Ramaphosa and NEC members alleged to have lied to parliament under oath about CR17 donors, political interference in Eskom operations, capture the state through his role as the chairman of optimum,” reads one of the placards.

The group were singing and chanting slogans.

Thursday is the deadline for the ANC’s nine provincial secretaries to submit their lists of names of members charged with corruption to secretary-general Ace Magashule.

This is after an ANC memo, which was leaked to the public, revealed the provinces were required to submit the list by the end of the day at 5pm.

In the memo, Magashule widened the scope of those who should step down to include party members implicated in corrupt practices.

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Magashule headlines the list of those who may need to step aside. He faces 21 charges of fraud and corruption related to his tenure as Free State premier over a R250 million Free State asbestos contract.

He is out on R200,000 bail. The case was postponed to 11 August 2020 for pre-trial hearings in the Free State high court.

Magashule has been meeting with former party leaders to consult with them as the deadline looms for him to vacate office.

On Thursday afternoon he arrived in Nkandla, northern KwaZulu-Natal, to meet with former president Jacob Zuma as part of his consultations