/ 12 May 2014

EFF’s Mpofu requests to not go to Gauteng legislature

Dali Mpofu.
Dali Mpofu.

The Economic Freedom Fighters’s (EFF’s) Dali Mpofu will not be going to the Gauteng legislature, the party said on Monday.

“Following the meeting of the central command team of the EFF that sat this [Monday] morning, the leadership has accepted commissar Dali Mpofu’s request not be deployed in the Gauteng legislature,” spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said in a statement. 

The party said the decision was granted upon an assessment of Mpofu’s role in the Farlam commission that was entering a “significant phase”. Ndlozi said Mpofu, the party’s Gauteng premier candidate in the past elections, asked to be allowed to focus on the building of organisational structures. 

“Commissar Dali Mpofu remains a committed member of EFF and shall continue to serve as a member of the central command team responsible for justice and special projects,” he said. 

Mpofu is an advocate for arrested and wounded miners at the commission of inquiry.

The inquiry led by retired judge Ian Farlam is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related violence at Lonmin’s platinum mining operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg in North West.

The police shot dead 34 people, mostly striking mineworkers, wounded more than 70 and arrested 250 people on August 16 2012 while trying to disarm and disperse them. â€“ Sapa, additional reporting by Staff Reporter