Picture: The Chairperson of the North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Roads, Community Safety and Transport Management, Mmoloki Cwaile/Facebook
By OBAKENG MAJE
Factionalism, infighting, gate-keeping, and slate politics continue to rattle the ANC’s sinking ship in North West. In the latest shenanigans, the ANC Chief Whip in the North West Provincial Legislature (NWPL), Lazarus Mokgosi, wrote a letter to the ANC deployee and Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Roads, Community Safety and Transport Management, Mmoloki Cwaile to clarify his utterances during a public hearing on Division of Revenue Bill (DORB) at Boskuil in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District.
On 18 April 2023, Cwaile made critical remarks, where he ruffled a few feathers of individuals such as ANC provincial chairperson and North West MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlement and Traditional Affairs (COGHSTA), Nono Maloyi, North West Premier, Bushy Maape and the former North West MEC for Social Development and ANC Youth League president, Collen Maine by accusing them of corruption and incompetence.
This allegedly forced the ANC in North West to write a letter to Cwaile. In the letter that was seen by Taung DailyNews, Mokgosi said they view Cwaile’s remarks as an attack on the ANC and its leaders.
“On 18 April 2023, you were part of a team of members of the Legislature doing the public hearing on the Division of Revenue Bill at Boskuil Community Hall in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District. In that public hearing, statements were made by your good self, which is viewed to have been an attack on ANC and its leaders.
“The Chief Whip’s Office is requesting a report from yourself on the said observation. We will appreciate it, if the report can be sent on or before 2 May 2023,” Mokgosi.
Meanwhile, the buoyed Cwaile said he is willing to produce the evidentiary proof supporting his utterances. He further said, he had not spoken nor acted against the ANC but spoke in response to the concerns raised by attendees who were part of the public hearing with regard to service delivery.
“I also wish to confirm that, the venue at which the public hearing was held, was declared a site for the work of the Legislature in terms of Section 2 (2) of the Powers, privileges, and Immunities Act no 4 of 2004. I acted as a public representative whose allegiance is first and foremost to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
“Therefore, I represented the Legislature as the ANC deployee to the Legislature and acted for and on behalf of the Legislature. Importantly, for the interest of the public as per constitutional mandate for the Legislature,” he said.
Cwaile added that, assuming that Mokgosi holds intellectual appreciation of the role of ANC deployees in the Legislature, he has not spoken nor acted against ANC, but spoke in response to the concerns raised by the public hearing attendees with regard to service delivery.
He said he is convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that, he was most correct and truthful and had no mandate to lie, but to speak about those either affected given their role in public service space band or implicated.
“It is also not true that it was a complaint against ANC, but individuals who happen to be in the positions of leadership of ANC and importantly occupying public positions.
“Simply because they are in positions of the ANC leadership, they are not necessarily enjoying any immunity from being the subject of discussions or engagements in the public discourse as they are occupying public positions.
I am able to make available evidentiary proof and work in progress as being executed by the Legislature Committees and its individual members as public representatives with regard to my submissions to the public hearing,” said Cwaile.
He said, nevertheless, he wishes to request any specifications on what could be concerns of the Chief Whip on his engagements with the public on the occasion of the public hearing dated 18 April 2023.
The Guardian 