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Caiphus Kgosana

COSATU is pushing to replace axed president Willie Madisha as chairperson of the contested Job Creations Trust (JCT).

City Press has also learnt that the central executive committee (CEC) that met this week also decided to go ahead with the threatened disciplinary action against Numsa secretary-general Slumko Nondwangu.

Nondwangu was on President Thabo Mbeki’s list for the Polokwane conference. Cosatu had decided to support Jacob Zuma and now says Nondwangu breached protocol.

Both actions are seen as part of the ongoing battle to remove all Cosatu and affiliated union leaders who do not support Zuma.

The federation wants its acting president Sdumo Dlamini to head up a group of Cosatu representatives on the JCT – a joint job creation platform made up of Cosatu, the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) and the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu).

Cosatu insiders who attended its CEC said both Dlamini and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi had indicated they would push hard to have Madisha replaced.

Madisha’s insistence on continuing to serve as chairperson of the trust has angered Vavi, who has vowed to ensure that Madisha did not play a role in any initiatives that involve Cosatu.

But Madisha has received strong backing from the other two federations that make up the trust, with both Fedusa and Nactu indicating that they were opposed to removing him from the trust.

Madisha was fired by Cosatu after a commission of inquiry found he had brought the federation into disrepute by alleging that he had handed a R500 000 donation to SACP general secretary, Blade Nzimande. Nzimande denied this.

Fedusa president Mary Malete has said her federation and Nactu were happy with the way Madisha had conducted the trust’s affairs. The trust has about R89 million in reserves.

Malete said they regarded Madisha as a credible chairperson of the trust, but conceded that they would be guided by Cosatu should it feel that it wanted a new team to represent it at the JCT.

Nactu chairperson Joseph Maqhekeni said the removal of the chairperson was not that easy. He said the rules of the trust stated that the removal of the chairperson required a majority vote from not only the trustees but buy-in from all federations.

Cosatu has eight of the 12 trustees while Fedusa and Nactu have two members each. Though Cosatu is allowed to change the make-up of its JCT representatives, it will still need buy-in from the other two federations to remove Madisha.

Cosatu and Numsa are also at loggerheads over the decision to discipline Nondwangu for his support for Mbeki.

A source who attended the CEC said a new disciplinary committee chaired by Cosatu vice-president Violet Seboni had been put in place and one of its first tasks would be to institute disciplinary proceedings against Nondwangu.

“They were expecting Numsa to apologise on behalf of Nondwangu but that did not happen.

“So they said they would go ahead with disciplinary action,” said the insider.

Numsa has already rejected suggestions of a disciplinary hearing against Nondwangu. Earlier this year, the union’s Ekurhuleni region threatened to march on Cosatu House if he was disciplined.

A Numsa source said members were angry at the decision and felt the Nondwangu matter was an internal one and should not be dealt with at Cosatu level.

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