The African National Congress (ANC) has summoned the Nelson Mandela Foundation to the party’s headquarters to discuss any fundamental matter it may have with the party.

“If the Nelson Mandela Foundation has an issue‚ they will talk to us and we are inviting them in any way to meet us next week‚” said ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.

He was responding to the foundation’s call for the governing party to “to take the steps necessary to ensure that the vehicle of state be protected and placed in safe and capable hands“.

On Tuesday‚ the organisation founded by the late statesman after whom it is named said it supported the demand to hold to account those responsible for compromising the democratic state and looting its resources.

Earlier this year‚ the board of the foundation requested an urgent meeting with the ANC amid growing calls for President Jacob Zuma to step down following the damning Constitutional Court ruling about upgrades to his Nkandla home.

There has mounting pressure for Zuma to resign‚ not only from opposition parties but from ANC veterans‚ party members and some branches‚ civil society and religious bodies.

The foundations’ board said it understood the public sentiment behind the calls for Zuma’s removal‚ and that there were issues that needed attention but added that the country had already experienced a presidential recall which failed to deliver strategies required to address the “systemic imperative“. — TMG Digital