Beaufort West human rights worker Vuyisa Jantjies faces expulsion from the African National Congress if he carries on accusing its provincial leadership of being soft on corruption, an ANC disciplinary panel has warned.
But Jantjies, a staffer at the Karoo Centre for Human Rights and one of the most vocal opponents of the town’s controversial municipal manager Truman Prince, has no intention of backing down.
In a decision announced on Tuesday, the panel headed by lawyer Peter Williams found Jantjies guilty of making ”false, untrue and/or misleading” statements about the party in the media which put it in a bad light.
In one of the statements, he claimed provincial leaders in August threatened to expel any member who highlighted corruption and maladministration.
In another, he claimed: ”If we talk about issues of nepotism and corruption, action will be taken against us.”
The disciplinary hearing was held in his absence after he walked out, saying he wanted legal representation, when it took place last Saturday after a number of postponements.
The panel decided Jantjies should be warned that if he made any false and prejudicial statement about the party within the next year, he would be automatically expelled.
”The same would apply if he published such statements in his Bhobhofolo News,” the panel said, referring to an irregular, privately-funded newsletter Jantjies produces and distributes in the town.
The panel had determined Jantjies’ statements were false on the basis of testimony by ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha and documentation, Williams said.
The other panel members were Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo and provincial executive member Randall van den Heever, who said Jantjies had shown a ”general cavalier approach” to the hearings with no remorse whatsoever.
Jantjies told the South African Press Association he intended to appeal the decision on the grounds that the panel refused to hold the hearing at a time when his legal representative was available.
Asked whether he stood by the contentious statements, he said: ”I haven’t yet been proven wrong.”
Insofar as there had been no discussion within the organisation on the issue, and no environment created to debate it, he said, he could not ”just forget that there was anything raised like that”.
On the issue of Bhobhofolo News, he said the ANC was infringing his right to freedom of expression, and would not allow the party to act as censor.
”If Bhobhofolo News has so far carried any untrue statements, they should make me aware [of them],” he said. ”I wouldn’t let anyone dictate to me what the editorial content should be.”
Prince was suspended from the ANC for six months in June — also by a panel headed by Williams — after being found guilty of bringing the party into disrepute through several indiscretions. – Sapa