Eastern Cape premier Makhenkesi Stofile should be fired, and national government must directly intervene in the running of the province, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa said on Thursday.
”President (Thabo) Mbeki must fire Stofile… At the very least, national government must take over the departments of education, health and social development, in order to ensure that delivery takes place,” he said in a statement.
Referring to an African National Congress (ANC) executive decision earlier this week to nullify the results of the party’s Eastern Cape leadership elections, Holomisa said this ”confirms the leadership void of the ANC” in the province.
The shock decision set aside the re-election of Stofile as ANC provincial chairman.
Holomisa said his party had warned for many years that corruption and mismanagement was rife in the region under ANC rule.
”Delivery in education, health and social development has been nearly non-existent, whilst corruption and mismanagement have been the order of the day.”
His comment follows the resignation of Eastern Cape education MEC Stone Sizani on Wednesday, who quit citing ”personal reasons”.
At least two others MEC were rumoured to have been asked to step down on instructions from President Thabo Mbeki.
They were Public Works MEC Phumulo Masualle and Social Development MEC Ncumisa Kondlo. But it is understood that Kondlo and Masualle have refused to follow Sizani, saying they have been given no reason why they should quit.
Stofile was apparently asked to sack the trio some weeks ago. On Tuesday last week, after the President’s debate in the National Council of Provinces, he was issued with an ultimatum to do so by the end of next week, the Daily Dispatch newspaper reported.
The province was awash with rumours yesterday as to why Mbeki had demanded the action, particularly as not even opposition parties have called for their resignations on grounds of incompetence.
One suggestion is that they are part of a ”leftist” clique and that their removal is part of a purge. Mbeki personally attacked leftist elements within the ANC in his weekly electronic letter recently, and there have also been attacks on the deputy general-secretary of the South African Communist Party, Jeremy Cronin.
Kondlo is on the central committee of the SACP, and Masualle is chairman of the party in the Eastern Cape. Sizani is not a member of the SACP. – Sapa