The majority of the fired ANC councillors in the troubled Tlokwe local municipality, spurned the party’s overtures to lure them back and registered as independent candidates for the by-elections set for September 18.

The ANC’s national disciplinary committee (NDC) recently ruled that the 14 councillors, who had been kicked out of the party by the provincial leadership, be reinstated as party members because their sacking was unprocedural.

The provincial executive met the fired councillors to convey the ruling of the NDC, but the message had no takers.

One of the affected members, Palesa Mohlope, said if they were unprocedurally fired as councillors, then they should be reinstated as councillors.

He said the ANC was trying to buy them back and indicated that they would never sell their souls again.

“To show our determination never to look back, we registered as independent candidates on Monday and the ANC should know what’s coming its way, hence these half-measures to try and defocus us. We say keep your ANC and we keep our integrity,” he said.

Mohlope added that what they fought against was corruption and they would not be seen to be reneging on that score.

“We live among the people, they suffer everyday yet some within the council are helping themselves to issues that should benefit the majority. 

“We fought against the sacked mayor’s conduct over a certain plot, where we were supposed to relocate people but he used it for his cattle and many other issues where the community had been fleeced. It appears in the ANC that people do not come first, a clear violation of the Batho Pele principles and we have had enough of that,” he said.

Mohlope will be standing as an independent in ward 20 and said operations were underway to galvanise support for all the independent candidates.

“The ANC saw what we did in ward 9 and they are running scared. We had little resources but it shook them to the core. We are going to see a changed Tlokwe because people are tired of corruption,” he said.

Provincial ANC spokesperson Ishmail Mnisi said the leadership in the province had met with the councillors but no one had indicated that they had issues.

“We had a meeting with them on Monday but they did not say anything. To us it appears everything was alright and as bearers of the message, there was also a limit on what we could do,” he said.

Mnisi added if any of the affected councillors had issues, they would have to raise them with the party individually because from the onset, each member was charged alone.

Meanwhile, the ANC has released a full list of its candidates set to contest in the September 18 by-elections at Tlokwe.

Source: http://www.thenewage.co.za