Luthuli House Insists ANC Limpopo Conference Will Go Ahead, Despite Looming Court Action

Disgruntled party members in the province have slapped the organisation with court papers to put the brakes on the congress.
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Despite looming court action to challenge the ANC Limpopo elective conference scheduled for this weekend, Luthuli House insists the conference will go ahead.

Disgruntled party members in the province have slapped the organisation with court papers to put the brakes on the congress.

The matter is set to be heard in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Saturday morning.

It is not yet clear whether the congress will start as planned on Saturday before the matter is finalised in court.

News24 has learnt that the party was preparing to downgrade the conference to a consultative conference in case the court ruled in favour of the disgruntled members.

ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe told journalists on the sidelines of the conference registration that it is all systems go.

"As matters stand now I can say to you that the registration is underway. Where we stand really is it's all systems go. The secretary general and all the deployees are here," Mabe said.

He added that party lawyers were dealing with court action to interdict the conference.

Secretary general Ace Magashule has labelled the court action as a factional attempt to derail the election of leadership.

In a letter dated June 20, 2018, in response to a letter of a motion to interdict the conference, Magashule said the disgruntled members were not acting in the interest of the party as they claimed.

"It appears to me that your clients are part of a faction and having made a calculation that the balance of forces are not in the favour of their action, are now prepared to abuse our courts for their personal interests.

"One can only surmise that your clients are preparing to interdict the conference on spurious grounds and are not acting in the interests of the ANC as they purport," he said in response to some of their claims of irregularities in branch general meetings.

Magashule argued that preparations for the conference were at an advanced stage and millions of rands had already been spent to put it together.

He said they noted that the disgruntled members might have additional information with regard to alleged irregularities and were opting to raise it in court.

"Not placing details of all grievances before the organisation at this stage would be very prejudicial to it," he argued.

Magashule said National Executive Committee (NEC) deployees in the province had met members of the youth league in the Peter Mokaba region and the co-ordinator of the concerned group in order to avoid litigation and ensure any grievances were ventilated.

He said in that meeting certain decisions were arrived at to make representations of the region.

The letter did not specify what these decisions were, safe to say that the representations were geared at making the regional task team more inclusive.

Magashule reminded the members that the party had amended its constitution to strengthen internal processes.

These included the establishment of the National Resolution Committee to consider disputes where the rights of members were infringed at branches meetings.

These amendments came into effect on December 20, 2017. He said the NEC has resolved that disputes should be dealt with internally before running to courts.

"It is also important to point out at the outset that the provincial elective conference of the Limpopo province due to take place between 22 and 24 June 2018, is a conference of branches convened at the request and directive of the NEC.

"For this purpose the NEC deployed a team of its members to exercise jurisdiction over the conference and adjudicate any disputes that may rise," he said.

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