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ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule and his deputy Jessie Duarte are the leaders Nelson Mandela Bay Councilor Andile Lungisa will turn to to guide him on how to deal with the recent demands for his resignation.
Lungisa is under pressure from the ANC regional task force (RTT) to resign as a counselor and task force member for the Port Elizabeth District 2 branch.
The call for him to resign stems from his 2018 assault conviction for breaking a glass jug on the head of Alderman District Attorney Rano Kayser.
He appeals against his sentence, an effective two-year prison sentence, but has not been granted permission to appeal against his conviction.
Lungisa, who held a lengthy press conference Tuesday to respond to the instruction to resign, is insisting and says he will wait for Magashule and Duarte to guide him on the way forward.
Lungisa, who has disagreed with the Bay’s regional chiefs, said they were purging him because he had waged a war on corruption.
“The organization made the decision to publicly disassociate itself from anyone involved in corruption.
“I will write to the provincial secretary to tell him that I have received this letter from the media and that it will be necessary to clarify it because it is not the ANC that is talking about renewal.”
Lungisa has denied receiving the letter, saying the first thing he heard was when the media contacted him on Sunday for comment.
“The ANC must be an organization with integrity,” he said.
“Even the statement issued by the national executive committee [NEC] he’s talking about eradicating corruption.
“We will take the line of march from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s statement.
“People confuse two things.
“The resolutions are very clear on what to do.
“My case is not related to corruption. I do not steal.
“Mine is a council matter and I don’t sleep at night and I pray that the Supreme Court will sympathize with my case because I never went to council to hit anyone.”
Following a three-day meeting of the NEC that began on Friday, Ramaphosa announced that the party had resolved that all its members, including leaders at the national, provincial and local government levels, who have been charged with serious criminal and corruption charges should withdraw.
Lungisa said there was confusion surrounding his case because he was not involved in any corruption and did not steal.
“I am requesting guidance from the national leadership regarding my case because mine is not about corruption.
“The audience that I will seek with the national and provincial is simply to say that the leadership issued a statement, supported my cause since 2017.
“Now that we are fighting corruption and regional leaders are implicated in PPE-related corruption, there is a sudden change of mind,” Lungisa said.
He continued to implicate top city officials in high-level corruption.
He accused RTT Coordinator Luyolo Nqakula of trying to collapse the ANC in an attempt to hand over the subway to the DA.
“There is an agenda in which the ANC must totally collapse in favor of the DA.
“It is difficult even for the speaker to appeal.
“The main agenda is that the ANC must collapse and the DA must dictate and run this city.
“We want to be clear, it will never happen.
“We will never allow the Prosecutor’s Office to operate this subway.
“Those who are fighting for our membership can move on, but we will never allow the district attorney to preside over the affairs of this city,” he said.
“They went to the police station [and] filed charges. I am not accused, I have maintained and continue to maintain that this was nothing more than a smear campaign.
“They publicly claimed to have evidence, why haven’t they adduced evidence?”
Nqakula said that Lungisa continually displayed the “retrograde” element within him.
He said that the directives that were issued had not changed and he expected Lungisa to comply.
“They [directives] he will be executed without fear or favor; no amount of theater will deter the ANC from implementing its decisions, ”said Nqakula.
HeraldLIVE
