ANC splits show in W Cape
2008-09-24 12:00
Cape Town - The long-delayed ANC Western Cape provincial conference starts in Cape Town on Wednesday at the same time that delegates to a rival conference are being registered at a sports centre in Langa township.
The split was triggered when organisers of the conference, to be held at the International Convention Centre (ICC), belatedly notified branches that their delegates should register at a venue in the Nyanga township on the Cape Flats on Tuesday.
Until then, branches that had accused provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha and his supporters of falsifying membership numbers and excluding branches that did fully not support the promotion of Jacob Zuma as a future president of the country, planned a protest march on the ICC.
"But when they made it extremely difficult, even impossible, for some delegates to register by moving the registration out to Nyanga, we decided to hold a separate conference," one of the Langa organisers said.
He and other organisers wished to remain anonymous until after the conference, which they said would lodge a formal complaint that the conference at the ICC was "totally corrupt".
About 600 delegates from 39 ANC branches throughout the province were expected to attend the ICC gathering at which provincial chair, James Ngculu was expected to present a report. He was then expected to travel to Langa to address that conference.
Ngculu, an ally of axed Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool, heads the faction that has been at loggerheads with Skwatsha over the past year.
- SAPA