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Just hours after being released from jail on parole, former ANC Nelson Mandela Bay Councilor Andile Lungisa reportedly asked council leaders to postpone all council meetings until February 2021.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will ask Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola to explain Lungisa’s probation, which the party describes as irregular.
Lungisa, who was released Tuesday after serving just two months of a two-year prison term for assaulting a fellow councilman, asked Acting Mayor Tsonono Buyeye and President Buyelwa Mafaya to archive all council meetings this year.
This despite still being under prison restrictions and parole conditions.
The district attorney opposed and challenged their request, and Eastern Cape Provincial Leader Nqaba Bhanga said a “criminally accused” Lungisa would not tell them what to do.
Bhanga said Lungisa’s action was “another example of the desperation of the ANC and its connected cadres to cling to power and loot the coffers” of Nelson Mandela Bay.
“The district attorney will not receive instructions on when a convicted criminal and an inmate should hold town meetings. Lungisa is not behind bars, but he is still a prisoner. Only the ANC can receive instructions from a prisoner, ”Bhanga said.
Lungisa was defining himself as a “political prisoner” who only fought against the district attorney.
“His effort to draw parallels between himself and former President Nelson Mandela is shocking and should be treated with the disdain it deserves,” Bhanga said.
Lungisa was sentenced to two years in jail after he smashed a glass water jug on the head of DA councilman Rano Kayser during a council meeting in 2016.
Less than three months after he entered the North End Prison in Port Elizabeth to begin serving his two-year sentence, he was released on parole.
“The district attorney believes that Lungisa’s release, even taking into account all the parole regulations, is irregular and makes a mockery of our justice system,” Bhanga said.
DA Rep. James Selfe had posed questions to the portfolio committee on correctional services about Lungisa’s probation and responses expected for today, he said.
Bhanqa claimed that Lungisa had insulted Eastern Cape Prime Minister Oscar Mabuyane, President Cyril Ramaphosa, the State Capture Commission of Inquiry and the District Attorney, among others, shortly after his release.
Attempts to get Lungisa to comment failed.
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