Cape Town - The ANC’s provincial executive committee (PEC) in the Western Cape has given the green light for high-level talks with the Ses’khona People’s Movement, following last week’s attack on controversial poo-throwing activist Andile Lili.
The ANC and Ses’khona have been at loggerheads recently over what the people’s movement dubbed “political meddling in a job-creation project it had with the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa)”.
And after Ses’khona publicly blamed the ANC for the attack on Lili, the provincial leadership at the weekend resolved to meet Ses’khona to smooth over the troubles and thrash out a common approach to the challenges of housing, sanitation and jobs.
Lili was shot twice outside his Khayelitsha home last week.
The ANC said its members had recently been targeted by gunmen.
Last month ANC branch chairman and former Sanco leader, Charles Khanku, was shot dead outside a meeting in Crossroads, and a day after Lili’s attack, there was a failed attack on ANC councillor Jabu Mfusi, in Khayelitsha.
ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile told a media briefing at the party’s headquarters in Cape Town on Tuesday that Mfusi escaped injury after shots were fired at his home.
“It happened at his house as he was coming from a meeting. As he arrived at his house on Thursday night, two shots were fired as he entered. Bullets were basically extracted from his house and I am sure police will do ballistic (tests) to trace who has done that.”
Mjongile did not want to be drawn on the fact that the attacks could be linked to the party’s branch meetings before its provincial conference set for early next year.
“The unresolved assassination of Charles Khanku has left a deep sense of loss, and the senseless shooting of Andile Lili and the recent reported shooting at Jabu Mfusi’s house are all acts of cowardice.”
ANC Treasurer Fezile Calana said it was incorrect to say it was a fight between the ANC and Ses’khona.
“The concern that the organisation has is that all of a sudden you are getting these kind of attacks and what we are asking ourselves is who might benefit out of the confusion that is being created in the ANC’s base.”
He said it was in the interest of the ANC to be able to expose whoever was seeking to divide the ANC base.
Although the party could not provide dates for the meetings with Ses’khona, Mjongile said the fact that there were “differences on the issue of Prasa jobs requires a mature approach that at the end will benefit society”.
“In the view of the PEC the issues Ses’khona are advocating are the same issues and the same constituency that the ANC has basically represented, and in our view it makes more sense that we find common ground. Even if sometimes we don’t agree on tactics, we must be able to separate tactics and strategy on the issues on principal in order to illuminate unnecessary contestation and negative public statements.”
Mjongile said the issues raised by Ses’khona were on the ANC’s agenda.
“We are not saying the ANC is going to take over Ses’khona, we are saying let’s direct the fight to where it is due.”
Cape Argus