The African National Congress (ANC) in the North West has dismissed South African National Civic Organization (SANCO) service delivery march to the seat of the provincial government in Mahikeng, as opportunistic and politically insignificant. The relationship between the ANC and its alliance partners in the province continues to be “wobbly” as SANCO has since voted to split from the leader of the alliance over a misunderstanding or refusal to accept some of its decisions. SANCO led a service delivery protest what it calls “a lacklustre provision of services trajectory” over the last months to the people of the North West.
SANCO also wanted the ANC to dismiss the Executive Mayor of Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality.Speaking on YouFM Newshour, ANC Provincial spokesperson Tumelo Maruping said SANCO has still not accepted that its leader was removed as a member of the provincial legislature and as the Deputy Speaker following allegations that he misrepresented his qualifications.“There are no fundamental differences between the ANC and SANCO.If you recall the reason why SANCO issued a statement that they are disintegrating from the ANC was because of the recall of their then Provincial Chairperson (Tshepo Khoza) who was a member of the Provincial Legislature, and the seputy speaker and then they wanted us to replace that position with somebody from SANCO.
At that time and we then explain to them that in terms of the IEC processes we cannot replace before the 12 months period lapses and they couldn’t understand and accept that reality,” said MarupingANC said what SANCO is claiming to be fighting for issues that the party has already undertaken to address at the provincial local government summit that was held two weeks ago in Potchefstroom, dismissing assertions that SANCO was not invited to the summit.“
SANCO itself issued a letter to the provincial executive committee (of the ANC) that they are disintegrating from the ANC, at a later stage we continued engaging them and called another series of meetings.They then issued another letter post our engagement with the General Secretary of SANCO that they want to continue disintegrating.Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do the ball is in their court but we still regard SANCO as an ally of the ANC and we want to work with them because it’s not the entire membership of SANCO who are agreeing with this decision, but bee continue with the engagement with them and hoping that one day we will find each,” explained MarupingSANCO has also called for the immediate removal of the Executive Mayor of Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality Cllr Khumalo Molefe over allegations of corruption made against him and failure to render services to the communities within the district.Maruping said that the party hasn’t received the official report on allegations of corruption made against Molefe.“We don’t have a report on that matter, and I can’t comment on it now, should we get a report on why or what are the basis they want the Mayor to be recalled we will comment.But so far in terms of the assessment we have done as the ANC we don’t see any problem with the Executive Mayor of Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality.The issues in Ngaka Modiri Molema are issues of water, issues of service delivery and those are issues we are confronting them. We even invited the Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation and Magalies Water Board to work with the province to address the issue”Maruping however didn’t rule out the possibility of acting against Khumalo. “Of course, we can’t hide any wrongdoing by our own comrades if such exists, we should be able to process it.If SANCO have some empirical evidence into that effect, they must just bring it forth to the ANC we will definitely process it.
