Durban — As the battle for control of the three-year-old Abantu Batho Congress (ABC) goes to court, its founder Philani Mavundla has named the party national chairperson Bhungu Gwala as the mastermind behind the plot to unseat him as president of the party.
In his affidavit, the embattled Umvoti Local Municipality mayor singled out Gwala, a party councillor in eThekwini as part of the rogue elements who planned to pull him down.
Mavundla, who is also former eThekwini deputy mayor, has deposed his affidavit in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in his attempt to invalidate his and the party secretary-general’s suspensions by the faction led by Gwala.
Mavundla began his court application by declaring himself as the founder of the party on January 8, 2020, and went further to claim that as the president he was the chief custodian of the values and principles espoused in the party’s constitution, including matters of discipline.
He added that the party’s constitution empowered him to establish the ad hoc national disciplinary committee and on July 18, using his party’s constitutional powers, he appointed the same committee to deal with disciplinary matters.
In support of this argument, Mavundla said since 2020 there had been a number of complaints lodged by members. He argued that the second respondent's (Gwala’s) responsibility was to ensure that the complaints were finalised without delay. This argument is in contrast to Gwala’s claim that he was the one responsible for setting up the disciplinary committee.
The matter is scheduled to be heard in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Friday.
Hitting back, Gwala said Mavundla’s court application was an attempt to avoid accountability for mismanaging the finances of the party and vowed to oppose the matter.
He said it was a pity that instead of doing the easy thing – to just come and present the party’s financial statements – Mavundla chose to use the court to avoid accountability.
The fight for control of the party was not only in courts but was political as well. Since Mavundla took over as mayor in Umvoti in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands town of Greytown, several marches to unseat him have been organised.
Last week, four people were arrested after allegedly looting a bread truck used to feed the “hungry marchers”.
The party’s problems came to light two weeks ago when a faction led by Gwala suspended Mavundla and the party’s secretary-general, Phumelele Phahla.
Gwala’s letter sparked a sharp response from Phahla, who challenged Gwala to prove where he got the powers to suspend them.
In a statement penned by Phahla in response, she dismissed the suspension as invalid, questioning Gwala’s powers and asking him to prove where in the party constitution it said he could do that.
Phahla said she earlier announced a disciplinary committee and did not understand why the national chairperson announced a parallel committee.
She said a reasonable suspicion now existed that the formation of this structure served as the destruction of disciplinary measures for those who had misconducted themselves.
She said this created the inescapable impression that there were senior members of the party who were involved in sowing divisions with the sole intention of emasculating the current leadership by sabotage and other fraudulent means.
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Daily News