The eThekwini region has distanced itself from a letter purported to be from one of its members who accused ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign of vote-buying during the recent national elective conference.

Regional secretary Musa Nciki said: “We didn’t know anything about it until I called Thabani [Mdletshe, the author] yesterday to ask him about the letter. He distanced himself from the letter and told me he was put under pressure.”

TimesLIVE reported earlier that all candidates who campaigned for positions at the recent elective conference will have to submit financial disclosures on the funding of their campaigns after allegations of vote-buying.

The party’s electoral committee said this in a letter penned by its secretary Chief Livhuwani Matsila, dated December 27, stating: “The electoral committee shall scrutinise the final financial disclosures on campaign expenditures and make a final determination on compliance with the electoral rules in respect of each candidate.”

According to a SABC report, Mdletshe wrote a scathing letter to ANC electoral chairperson Kgalema Motlanthe, accusing the incumbent leadership of buying votes at the conference at Nasrec.

TimesLIVE has seen a letter from Mdletshe, addressed to Nciki, in which he says: “I distance myself from the fraudulent letter that has been submitted to the ANC electoral committee on my behalf.”

As a disciplined member of the ANC, Mdletshe says, “if I had any dissatisfaction about the ANC 55th national conference, I was going to follow the ANC constitutional protocol and raise my formal complaint to you as my regional secretary who I report to.

“Hence I’m vividly distancing myself from that letter and even the signature on that letter is not mine. I hope this letter will clear the noise that has been caused by such a fraudulent letter, I thank you.”

Speaking earlier, Nciki said he was waiting for Mdletshe to write an official letter to the region explaining what happened.

“I will issue a statement distancing the eThekwini region and KwaZulu-Natal from the letter because we were in a conference, we respected the results and we will be rallying behind the elected leadership.”

Ramaphosa’s faction won by a clean sweep, beating former health minister Zweli Mkhize by more than 500 votes.

Nciki said he is waiting for Mdletshe to disclose who put him under pressure to make the damning allegations.

“At the conference most branches in KwaZulu-Natal held different views in terms of who should be president of the ANC, and there were lobbyists in charge of ensuring that their candidates emerged.

“He told me there were some lobbyists who put him under pressure. He must disclose that to me because this matter is putting the organisation into disrepute. We accepted the results.”

Nciki said he asked Mdletshe whether he had evidence to prove the allegations.

“He said nothing can be proved, so for me this is just a smear campaign about the processes we have done and accepted.”

He said he did not personally know Mdletshe.

“I am surprised by all of this because he is a newly elected chairperson. If you look at the contents of the letter, you can see it was written by someone who has more information, and it may be he was used as a signatory on a letter he did not pen.

“I suspect something because if there was an issue he would have raised these issues internally, where we could have discussed and dealt with them.”

Mdletshe was not immediately available for comment.

TimesLIVE