EFF T-shirt-wearing Coligny mother explains why she ‘chases away’ the ANC

On Wednesday, the Economic Freedom Fighters paid a visit to the mother of slain Coligny teenager Matlhomola Mosweu, Agnes Mosweu, after the drama that unfolded last week Thursday at the handing over of a house to their family in North West.

Agnes Mosweu arrived at the event, organised by the ANC-governed North West government, dressed in an EFF T-shirt.

Officials and ANC members wanted her to change out of it, but she refused.

“They cannot dictate to me what to wear,” she said.

Mosweu’s father, Sakkie Dingake, was seated at the back of the VIP tent erected for the handing-over ceremony, far from family members seated at the front.

He said he had not been invited, adding that Agnes was not happy her house was built at Gerdoren Park in Coligny and not at the Scotland informal settlement where she lived.

The house was isolated and near the place where Matlhomola had been killed, he said.

North West premier Job Mokgoro ceremonially handed over the house to the family after it was pledged by former human settlements minister Lindiwe Sisulu and the Gift of the Givers in 2017, following the death of Mosweu. He was accused of stealing sunflower seed heads at Rietvlei farm.

Mosweu told the party on Wednesday that, as she understood it, the house was not paid for by government or the ANC but by the Gift of Givers, “who had asked to give her a house, out of goodwill”, the EFF said on Twitter.

The family had been staying in a dilapidated shack at Scotland informal settlement.

Born Matlhomola Jonas Mosweu, 16, the teenager was killed by Pieter Doorewaard, 28, and Phillip Schutte, 35, on April 20, 2017.

The pair caught Matlhomola, commonly known as Faki, with sunflower heads worth R80 at their employer’s field.

They put him in the load bin of their bakkie and drove off. Along the way, the court found that Schutte pushed him out while the bakkie was still in motion.

He sustained neck injuries and died on his way to hospital in Lichtenburg. His death set off mass violent protest in the sleepy maize producing town.

Six houses and three trucks were torched, several shops were looted and damaged and the town was shut down for five days until the two handed themselves in to the police.

Doorewaard and Schutte claimed he jumped out of the bakkie in an attempt to flee but the North West High Court rejected their version and accepted that of the sole eyewitness, Bonakele Pakisi, that Faki was pushed.

Schutte was sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment for murder, three for kidnapping, two for intimidation, one for theft and two for pointing of a firearm.

The sentences for kidnapping, intimidation, theft and pointing of a firearm would run concurrently, meaning he would serve an effective 23 years in jail.

Doorewaard was sentenced to an effective 18 years for murder, kidnapping, intimidation, theft and two years for pointing of a firearm.

On Wednesday, the EFF wanted to know what was behind Mosweu’s stand against the ANC and why she had refused to take off her shirt.

She reportedly told the party that she had not been an EFF member prior to her son’s murder, but the “commitment, support and fight shown by the EFF for justice for her son” led to her becoming one.

Mosweu added that, in her opinion, the EFF was not corrupt, but the ANC was, and that was why she had a policy of “chasing away” all ANC members coming to canvass for her vote.

(Compiled by Charles Cilliers)