ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has refused to apologise to former ANC stalwart Mavuso Msimang after Mbalula accused the former ANC Veterans League deputy president of resigning through the media.
Mbalula accused Msimang, who quit the party last week, of having tendered his resignation through the media and not directly to the ANC.
He further accused the veteran of allegedly taking a bribe from Roger Jardine during his address at Wedela Community Hall on the West Rand at the weekend.
Mbalula, who has been slammed for some of his recent public statements against ANC veterans, has been calling for veterans to desist from de-campaigning the ANC by using money to lure their leaders away from the party.
On Monday, Msimang said he had sent his resignation letter directly to Mbalula and his assistant, and less than two hours later, his resignation was leaked to the media.
“It’s a pity that the ANC has a person such as Mbalula as its secretary-general. It’s an embarrassment. For an organisation that once boasted the likes of Sol Plaatjie, Oliver Tambo, Duma Nokwe and a few others — to end up with a Mbalula is actually a commentary on the state of the organisation,” Msimang said in a video posted on X.
The combative war of words comes a week after Msimang quit the ANC, citing the party’s failed attempts at ridding itself of corruption and corrupt individuals.
In his resignation letter, Msimang said the ANC is on the verge of losing power and its credibility as the voice of the poor. He said this and many other issues have resulted in him distancing himself from the party he had served for more than six decades.
“This dramatic decline in the organisation’s popularity is attributable to widely held perceptions that its members and deployees are corrupt, that the party has a high tolerance threshold for venality,” he said.
In the latest video -- widely shared on X even though Msimang does not have an active X account -- the Struggle veteran pleads with Mbalula to retract his statements about him and apologise.
“I plead with Mbalula — in fact I demand that he retract these accusations against me as they are libellous. He should do so soon. It is a friendly request, but it has to happen,” he said.
However, Mbalula also in a video, indicated that there will be no apology from him on the issue.
“There will be no apology because there is no accusation of DR Mavuso Msimang as having been bribed. Furthermore, it is normal that when you’re serving as a secretary general of the ANC, you will be compared to stalwarts and our forebears, and we are not allergic to such comparisons,” he said on Monday evening.
The Star