A Limpopo property developer has emerged as the businessman who ANC Youth League president Julius Malema accuses of ‘dividing the youth league”.
At the same time, cracks in the league’s national executive committee (NEC) support for Malema have been shown up by last weekend’s failed youth league conferences in the Eastern Cape.
Malema has alerted President Jacob Zuma that ‘a businessman” is funding youth league rebels in Limpopo to defeat Malema’s proxy candidate for the top league position in the province.
The Mail & Guardian was told this week that Malema was referring to Polokwane entrepreneur Kholofelo Maponya, a nephew of Johannesburg business mogul Richard Maponya.
The younger Maponya owns several businesses, including empowerment, catering and financial services companies in Polokwane.
He is said to be a supporter of the Black Entrepreneurs Business Forum, a group of businessmen who marched on Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale’s office in February to complain that government business had been diverted to Malema and his friends since Mathale took office, leaving them out in the cold.
The group is said to have been close to former Limpopo premier Sello Moloto. Maponya said he was not aware that Malema was referring to him: ‘I’m just an ordinary businessman; I’m sure [Malema] has more important adversaries than me.”
A youth league insider with links to Limpopo and affiliated to Malema told the M&G that Maponya has ‘lots of money and they are against Julius. So Julius knows it is him behind these guys who are his enemies.”
ANC Youth League spokesperson Magdalene Moonsamy told the M&G that Malema’s comment, said in Sepedi on Sunday at the Peter Mokaba rally in Polokwane, is a ‘political matter”.
‘We are not going to divulge the name until the time is right. We are not naming individuals on political matters. The point was to indicate that we are aware of such tendencies. They [those referred to] can take it however they want to, as a warning or whatever,” she said.
The insider said Malema does not see Maponya as a real threat and was merely warning the group to stop referring to him. ‘These people are politically weak,” he said. ‘This is just a way for Julius to get peace; he does not want them to keep on calling his name, so he is warning them.
‘He does not see them as a real threat. They have money but they have no real political power, that is why they started funding the anti-Julius group. It is well known in Limpopo that these guys are multimillionaires and they are mad because they are not getting business: Julius is getting all the business.”
Meanwhile, it became clear during the failed congresses of the Eastern Cape youth league that the NEC is split in its support for Malema. Cracks appeared when NEC members attended a congress held in Port Elizabeth; according to the league’s leadership, this had no official standing.
The ‘official” conference in East London had been organised by national secretary general Vuyiswa Tulelo. ANC MPs Mduduzi Manana, Stella Ndabeni and Eastern Cape businessman Lobobala Molefi, who are all serving NEC members, attended the Port Elizabeth conference, the M&G was reliably told.
But Tulelo told the M&G: ‘No NEC member was deployed there [at the Port Elizabeth conference] and it is mischievous of anyone to say they were there.” For the first time there are signs that the top leadership of the youth league is not unified behind Malema.
The league’s national working committee this week disbanded the provincial executive committee, which was the one that organised the Port Elizabeth conference. Most of the league’s Eastern Cape leaders want Malema’s deputy, Andile Lungisa, to be elected youth league president at the conference next year.
A delegate at the Port Elizabeth conference told the M&G: ‘On the level of the NEC they [Malema’s supporters] do not have full power — that is why they brought the national working committee to disband the provincial leadership. We have too few people on the national working committee to sway such a decision, but on NEC level it is a different story.” A new conference will be convened in Cacadu (Humansdorp) in July and will be organised by the national leadership.