JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday 11.00pm.
MPUMALANGA’S sacked deputy speaker, Cynthia Maropeng, was found guilty of self-enrichment and of bringing the African National Congress into disrepute by the party’s provincial disciplinary committee in Nelspruit on Friday.
The three-man committee, headed by provincial finance MEC Jacques Modipane, tried Maropeng in her absence after she kept it waiting for two-and-a-half hours. Her attorney, Motlatsi Molefe, eventually telephoned to say that Maropeng was boycotting the proceedings.
The committee stressed after half-an-hour of deliberations on the evidence against Maropeng that the ANC had attempted everything in its power to give her a fair trial but had been forced to cancel two previous hearings because Maropeng refused to testify.
“We waited over two hours today and had not choice but to proceed or we would have failed our mandate — the charges against her are very grave. We found her guilty of abusing her position of trust and enriching herself, as well as embarrassing the ANC,” said Modipane.
Maropeng was formally charged with self-enrichment last month after the Ngobeni commission found that she embezzled at least R700000 from a secret legislature bank account and used her political position to favour friends and associates.
The ANC has already sacked Maropeng from the legislature, suspended her from the ANC and banned her from any party activities or events.
Modipane told African Eye News Service that the disciplinary committee would deliberate Maropeng’s political fate over the next week and would deliver its recommended disciplinary action to the provincial executive committee by August 21.
ANC prosecutor, Mohammed Bhabha, added after the hearing that the committee had been surprised at Maropeng’s fears of an unfair trial and rejected her view that the proceedings had been sub-judicae.
Maropeng told the media on Thursday that any internal ANC hearing would violate sub-judicae laws because she had already appeared in the Nelspruit magistrate’s court on nine related fraud and one theft charge.
Maropeng was unavailable for comment but Molefe said that the findings had been a foregone conclusion and that he expected the committee to recommend that Maropeng be expelled from the party. – African Eye News Service