Picture: ANC ward councillor, Tebogo Sepale accused of having sex with an underage boy/Facebook
By OBAKENG MAJE
The disgraced ANC ward 25 councillor, who is facing two counts of statutory rape and crimen injuria, is expected to appear at Orkney Magistrate’s Court today. Tebogo Sepale (40) was arrested on Sunday after he was seen allegedly having sex with an underage boy in a video that went viral on various social media platforms.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in the North West condemned Sepale’s alleged actions and said it was disappointed by his barbaric conduct. COSATU provincial secretary, Kopano Konopi said, they have learned that, Sepale allegedly molested young boys and girls in exchange of services.
“While doing that, he continued to record his acts and distributed on social media. In our view as COSATU, this is an act which must be condemned by the society at large. This kind of people should not be allowed to live with people and must be placed where they belong.
“It is also disgusting to the fact that, the community have trusted this person and have elected him as their representative in the council. It is expected of him to be the one who advocate for the rights of the community, instead he took advantage of the vulnerability that the community find itself in,” said Konopi.
He further said, as COSATU, the deployment of this shoddy characters by the ANC is an indication that, the ruling party, particularly in the North West, failed to implement the ANC constitution and policies of the organisation as guided by national.
“We also welcome the swift action by the law enforcement agencies for arresting him and we hope that proper and thorough investigation will be conducted, which will lead to conviction.
“We call on the ANC to summarily dismiss this person as a member. The ANC cannot continue to claim to be a leader of society, if it continues to keep membership of people who abuse the society. COSATU further calls on the ANC to do a thorough vetting of all its public representatives at all levels and also do the same to leadership of the ANC in all structures of the ANC,” said Konopi.
Meanwhile, the Forum 4 Service Delivery (F4SD) call for a harsh action to be taken against Sepale.
F4SD councillor, Matebogo Mosiako said: “We are of a view that perverts such as Sepale should not be given bail as they are not fit to be among the society due to this despicable behaviour. This heinous behaviour is no different to Gerhard Ackerman who was recently found guilty of over 700 counts including rape, sexual grooming, possession of child pornography, and sexual exploitation of children.
“The F4SD members, together with the residents of Kanana, will protest outside Orkney Magistrate’s Court, where the ANC pervert is expected to appear for his bail application.”
She said they are also working together with other Gender-Based Violence (GBV) activists because they believe there should be no room for violence in the communities.
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