OWN CORRESPONDENT and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Wednesday
FORMER Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa has challenged the ANC leadership – including President Thabo Mbeki – to admit that the termination of his premiership had been based on lies.
According to a report in the Beeld newspaper, Phosa directed the same challenge to ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlantle, repeating his earlier statement that a “plot” had been hatched against him.
Mbeki and Motlantle had been present during the Maphisa commission of 1999 responsible for terminating Phosa’s premiership.
Phosa told Beeld he has information which reveals that corruption affects the uppermost echelons of ANC leadership. He claims the evidence is contained in sworn statements he hopes to hand over soon to Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete and police chief commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Phosa said that he was likely to make himself available for a leadership position in ANC structures in future, the newspaper reported.
“However, I am not interested in returning to politics before corruption in the ANC has been rooted out. I will continue my battle within party structures.”
Phosa’s challenge follows after the arrest of his former provincial adviser Pieter Rootman last week by the Scorpions, the National Prosecutor’s specialist investigating unit, on charges of fraud involving more than R1m. Rootman been released on bail.
Rootman and Phosa claim they are victims of a plot to discredit them, that included “manufactured” fraud charges that led to Rootman’s arrest last week, and false evidence against Phosa at the ANC’s internal Maphisa Commission into political infighting within Mpumalanga in 1999.
The commission found Phosa guilty of autocratic and divisive leadership and ordered his immediate removal from the provincial ANC chair as well as the premiership. The full report has never been publicly released.
Phosa and Rootman insisted at the weekend that the findings were based on false evidence by witnesses who were either paid or pressurised to lie.
The ANC in Mpumalanga has expressed its disappointment over Phosa’s actions over the past few days.
ANC Mpumalanga deputy chair David Mabuza said Phosa should have raised his concerns through existing party bodies, including an internal tribunal that is currently reviewing political infighting within the ANC’s provincial structures.
“It is un-ANC to ignore the party constitution and to instead blow this thing publicly,” said Mabuza. – African Eye News Service