Hot seat: Mathews Phosa drew up the guidelines for the step-aside resolution adopted by the ANC executive last week. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
“We were not interested in factional nonsense,” the architect of the step-aside resolution guidelines and former ANC treasurer general Mathews Phosa told the Mail & Guardian this week.
Phosa, along with former president Kgalema Motlanthe, were two of the party veterans tasked with the formation of guidelines for the step-aside resolution.
The resolution, emanating from the watershed Nasrec conference in 2017, became a bone of contention last year when President Cyril Ramaphosa tasked the party’s national executive committee (NEC) with curtailing growing frustration around allegations of corruption within the ANC’s leadership.
Unable to agree on who should step aside, with many party leaders implicated in allegations of corruption — in the later parts of 2020 — the NEC referred the document to the national officials. This is when veterans Phosa and Motlanthe were roped in to formulate guidelines.
Phosa, who was in charge of presenting the finalised guidelines to the NEC in February, said the document “was written by people who mean well”.
“There was consensus that the document we produce must be timeless, uniting and not capable of being abused by either any individual or faction.”
The M&G previously reported that the guidelines were seen by secretary general Ace Magashule’s detractors as the boost needed to oust him.
The guidelines were adopted by the NEC when it sat on 19 February, stating that the step-aside process and its implementation must abide by the requirements of the party, labour law and the constitution.
In his closing address during the heated NEC this month, Ramaphosa said the party’s national working committee has been tasked with readying the guidelines for immediate implementation. He added that this will include consultation with provinces as well as workshops with party structures.
The guidelines also state that the step-aside decision may dilute the constitutional rights of a member and must be taken and communicated with due caution for its potential to violate the rights members enjoy under the law.
“The requirement that natural justice at all times be applied when any rights of a member are threatened by any process is a fundamental requirement,” the document reads.
“It was not about Ace; it was about members,” Phosa added. “You have to create structures that respect people’s rights; that is what we must do with the step-aside resolution.”
Phosa said he researched the matter with the objective of “retaining and salvaging whatever residue that was left of the ANC’s values”.
“We wanted to bring the political ventilator of the ANC and history was going to judge me if we had made the document factional,” he said.
Shortly after his second appearance at the Bloemfontein magistrate court, Magashule held an impromptu media briefing where he refused to respond on whether he would step aside from the party.
When the M&G asked if he would resign if prompted, Magashule simply said, “No, I am a disciplined member of the ANC.”
Magashule, who has maintained his innocence, faces more than 50 charges, along with 15 co-accused, of corruption, fraud, theft and money laundering in the Free State’s R255‑million asbestos scandal.
Magashule and his powerful supporters in the ANC have often called his prosecution politically motivated.
In December, Magashule was dealt another blow when the party’s integrity commission recommended he step aside while dealing with his legal woes or face suspension.
The guidelines said members must abide by the integrity commission’s recommendations.
This has been a particularly thorny problem for the ANC. Some people have refused to stand aside when faced with criminal charges and the matter has become a battleground for the factions vying for power.
The guidelines, however, added that allegations of corruption must be assessed for quality because members referred to the integrity commission have a right to require that the referral be rational, appropriate and commensurate with the standard that was applied to all others.
“Suspending a member or impairing aspects of their membership that would not allow full expression of their rights under clause 19 of the constitution needs to be executed with great caution and with appropriate rationality. In all instances, this must be done with due regard to all substantive and procedural rights under both the South African and ANC constitutions.”
Phosa argues that the integrity commission would be undermined if it made rulings and the courts came to a different conclusion.
“You have to have a legitimate structure that respects people’s rights,” Phosa said, referring to the structure of party elders. He told the M&G that the party must protect the integrity commission against being viewed as an illegitimate structure.
In the document, Phosa contends the commission is best suited to deal with matters requiring clarity about whether someone has committed an offence, external to the organisation or not. He also states that it is not inappropriate for the commission to provide terms and conditions that are applicable to a member’s suspension.
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