Pretoria - ANC national executive member (NEC) Tony Yengeni has written to the party’s electoral committee, appealing his ban to contest for a position in the NEC at the party’s elective conference this week.
Yengeni lodged the appeal with the committee's chairperson Kgalema Motlanthe yesterday, stating that the reasons for his ban were invalid because his record washad been expunged.
He was disqualified together with former ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini last week from standing for nominations for a position in the NEC as a result of having been criminally charged.
Yengeni was found guilty of fraud, after being accused of getting an unlawful discount on a Mercedes-Benz he had purchased, which earned him four years’ imprisonment. Dlamini was found guilty for perjury in relation to her testimony during an inquiry into her role in the 2017 social grants scandal.
According to Motlanthe, anyone who had been sentenced to a period of more than six months is automatically disqualified.
However, the duo have vowed to fight the committee, with Yengeni saying his record was expunged and no longer counted, while Dlamini said her case was not serious.
In the letter of appeal to Motlanthe, Yengeni accused the committee of acting “unlawfully” and “unconstitutionally”, saying that there was no reason for him being barred from entering the race to be an NEC member because his record no longer existed.
“After more than 10 years of the sentence I applied to the director-general of the Justice and Constitutional Development for the expungement of my criminal record. My application for expungement was accordingly approved.
“The resolution on which you seek to disqualify me from participation at the 55th national conference of the ANC was only taken in 2017. However, I had been sentenced more than 15 years since then and had also been punished by the ANC for the said offence; and too now seek to apply the 2017 conference resolution in retrospect to offences committed prior thereto is both unlawful and unconstitutional, to say the very least.”
Yengeni argued that he had no previous convictions or sentence, and for him to be perpetuated as having a criminal record was unlawful, against the Constitution and was seeking to infringe on his rights.
He said he had served his punishment within the ANC after his conviction where he was suspended for five years, which was wholly suspended by the NEC.
“It is also essential to highlight that, having gone through the disciplinary processes within the ANC, I have served the ANC and have been elected in three consecutive conferences, namely Polokwane, Bloemfontein and Nasrec.
”From an internal ANC process, your ruling and/or decision to disqualify me once again from contesting the national conference is tantamount to double jeopardy and retrospective application of the law against the prescripts of our constitution which is not allowed in our legal system,” Yengeni said.
Dlamini also disputed her ban from contesting the conference and vowed to sue the party last week.
The electoral commission had not responded to “Pretoria News” regarding these matters by late yesterday
Meanwhile, Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association has rejected the expulsion of its spokesperson, Carl Niehaus, by the ANC national disciplinary committee.
Niehaus was expelled by the party on Monday because he is “alleged to have made utterances during June and July 2021, which contravened various sub-rules of Rule 25 and brought the ANC into disrepute”.
He was accused of being one of the instigators of the July 2021 unrest that took place largely in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng following the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court.
However, he has since announced his intention to appeal the matter.
The movement’s Masechaba Motloung said in a statement: “We have learnt with anger and shock that comrade Carl Niehaus was today (Monday) informed, via social media leaks, that the national disciplinary committee of the ANC had decided to expel him from the ANC on the basis of trumped-up charges.
“The manner in which Comrade Niehaus had to learn about this attempted expulsion, through a social media lead, is outrageous, illegal, and most disrespectful.”
Pretoria News