The South African Communist Party (SACP) will decide this weekend whether to take part in an African National Congress probe into a hoax e-mail scam.
Senior figures in the ruling party were smeared by the e-mails, in an apparent succession battle for the presidency.
”We are then going to the central committee to try answer those questions,” SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Wednesday.
”The politburo has discussed the matter two weeks ago and decided to refer the matter to the central committee. We can’t stand on the side on matters of this nature. Even if you can say these are ANC matters, you can’t stand on the side. We are part of this movement. We are then going to formulate our own position,” he said.
Nzimande was addressing reporters during the release of the party’s central committee discussion documents on its relations with ”state power in a democratic South Africa”.
Once debated, the documents may be adopted at the party’s next congress in July 2007, Nzimande said.
In a letter to ”all allies”, ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe has confirmed that the task team has been created, who its members were and its terms of reference.
In March, the ANC appointed a task team ”to deal with the matter” of the e-mails, Nzimande said.
”Much as this is an ANC task team, not an alliance task team … nevertheless the matters that it deals with have in one way or the other affected the allies.
”That is precisely what we going to be discussing this week,” he said, adding that Motlanthe had invited the SACP to take part in the investigation.
Nzimande said he was not at liberty to disclose the contents of Motlanthe’s letter to the media.
”We will respect the process as internal,” Nzimande said.
An investigation by the Inspector General of the National Intelligence Agency, Zola Ngcakani, found that the e-mails and chat-room conversations, which came to light last year, were patently fraudulent and had not been intercepted but manufactured.
The finding led to the axing of the former head of the National Intelligence Agency, Billy Masetlha.
Since then, IT salesperson Muziwendoda Sikhona Kunene has appeared in the Pretoria regional court for allegedly distributing the e-mails. He was arrested in December, accused of contravening the Intelligence Services Oversight Act by not providing information about the e-mails to Ngcakani.
The case against him was postponed to June 26. – Sapa