Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - A failed court interdict aimed at halting the first ANC regional conference to be held in Mangaung in 10 years has not stopped the applicants from running their own separate conference in Free State.
Four applicants approached the Bloemfontein Division of the high court on Friday, with the view to urgently interdict their regional conference over alleged fraudulent branch general meetings.
According to the court papers, which the Pretoria News has seen, the interim regional committee of the ANC in Mangaung was an illegal structure that perpetuated fraudulent and irregular conduct towards the elective conference, which ensued over the weekend.
The applicants indicated that interim regional structures were set up in the Free State following a Supreme Court of Appeal decision to declare the provincial executive committee unlawful in 2021.
They told the court that the interim regional committee notified branches that the Mangaung regional conference would be held on November 18, 19 and 20, but the dates were later changed.
The applicants further mentioned that the conference was set to take place despite an incident in which a deceased ANC member allegedly attended a branch meeting and signed the register.
“An alleged signature of the said deceased is attached to the attendees list. It is evidently clear that this incident is indicative of the fraud that was committed.
“As if that was not enough, we established from the other persons who it is claimed attended the branch meeting and had signed the attendance register. They all stated that the signatures attributed to them were an act of forgery.
“Such was the pervasive nature of the fraud that the members preferred criminal charges against the perpetrators of such fraud… The investigations are still pending,” the applicants told the court.
The applicants added that they had lodged their disputes at national, provincial and regional level, with no resolution.
The High Court dismissed the application with costs, leading the applicants to hold their own regional conference at a different venue from the main conference.
Spokesperson for the applicants, Fani Ledimo, told the Pretoria News that they were not disgruntled, but felt aggrieved.
“We lost the urgent matter with costs and the reasons will be provided in 20 days. Our application was more on interdicting the conference based on irregularities during crucial branch meetings.
“There were clear instances all over the media where some comrades were caught generating barcodes in branches they don’t belong to. There were 23 disputes that were referred back to the interim provincial committee but they were never dealt with,” Ledimo said.
Ledimo said Luthuli House summoned eight branches implicated in the fraud, but there had not been any finality to the matter.
“We therefore resolved to hold our own conference. This is not a parallel conference, but the real conference of real branches who have real credentials. How could they call a conference with so many disputes unresolved?
“I am happy that three members of the interim regional committee also attended our first day of conference on Saturday,” Ledimo said.
Attempts to speak to the interim regional committee were unsuccessful.
ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe failed to respond to media questions about the parallel regional conferences and allegations of the national structure to resolve disputes.
Pretoria News