/ 20 November 2017

Third ANC offical gunned down in KZN region

Arguing as though it's 1999 assumes that somehow the violent events of that particular year have remained miraculously preserved in time.
Arguing as though it's 1999 assumes that somehow the violent events of that particular year have remained miraculously preserved in time.

A delegate to the ANC national conference in December has been murdered in what appears to be the latest political assassination in KwaZulu-Natal.

Lungisani Mnguni (34), a teacher turned businessperson, was gunned down this morning at Enkanyazeni in the Umkambathini Municipality at around 9.30am this morning while delivering groceries to a local school.

Mnguni, was elected by his ANC branch, Ward 7 Umkambathini, two weeks ago as its delegate number one for the ANC elective national conference in December. A former chair of the ANC branch and a leader of the ANCYL in the Moses Mabhida region, under which Umkambathini falls, Mnguni had recently resigned from teaching and started a business supplying the school nutrition programme at local schools.

ANC regional secretary said they were ‘’horrified’’ by the killing and appealed to members of the public who might have witness the apparent hit, which took place on the main road through Enkanyazeni, to come forward with evidence.

A SAPS spokesperson said that Mnguni had been attacked by a group of men who shot at his vehicle.

The spokesperson said Mnguni appeared to have crashed his vehicle into an embankment after being shot and had run down the steep hillside where he died.

They said that the motive for the killing was unknown and that no arrests have been made.

Mnguni’s killing is the third of an ANC official in the region in recent months. In August, ANC councillor for Ward 3, Kwazi Everlast Mkhize, who was also a leader of the ANCYL in the region, was murdered after attending an ANC branch meeting. His killing followed that of ANC Ward 6 chairperson Toyi Toyi Mtolo.

Umkhambathini mayor Eric Ngcongco was at the murder scene, where ANC local and regional leaders had gathered while a forensic team went about their work. Mnguni’s body taken away after they finished, with a single police van left on site to guard the bullet riddled bakkie.

Ngcongco said they were concerned that neither of the earlier killings had been solved.

‘’We hope the police will make arrests but we are frustrated. This is the third killing like this but nobody has been arrested,’’ Ngcongco said.