Fikile Mbalula threatens clampdown on leaks to journalists

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has threatened party leaders with forensic audits as he clamps down on leaks to the media and opposition political parties.

Mbalula on Tuesday announced that the national executive committee (NEC) meeting at the weekend decided to form a permanent structure to probe leaks of their confidential meetings.

Since taking over the job in 2022, Mbalula has been vocal about his displeasure at the relationship journalists have with NEC and national working committee (NWC) members. He has said he would make it his mission to find the culprits. His biggest concern, he said on Tuesday, was that some of the leaks were not even accurate.

“This permanent committee will conduct forensic audits of information leaked by NEC and NWC members involving internal ANC decisions and discussions. In most instances these discussions and decisions are distorted.”

There had been fears in the party that he may use state security arms, including crime intelligence and even military intelligence, to investigate members. However, most of the NEC and NWC members are also MPs, ministers, deputy ministers and other officials so such clampdowns could be viewed as a security risk.

Mbalula refused to say what mechanisms he would deploy in his probe.

“That one is our secret, but we are going to engage, and we have explained to you publicly that we will use forensic means to determine who in our ranks have decided to work with the media. And others even go further to brief the opposition. It’s better with the media but the opposition is another thing,” he said.

Asked by journalists if this forensic investigation would not infringe on both the Protection of Personal Information Act and media freedom, Mbalula said as the engine of the ANC he had the right to defend the party.

“We will teach them that every party, even if it’s a security company, when it is attacked it has the right to use any measure in law to defend itself.”

He was adamant he was not focusing on the media but on ANC members who at times even distorted discussions for factional reasons. He said faceless sources would lift information that was not yet a decision of the NEC and give it to a journalist.

Another decision taken by the weekend’s NEC meeting is to accept a draft diagnostic report by Mbalula on the state of the organisation, which he said built on those delivered by Kgalema Motlanthe and Gwede Mantashe in 1998 and 2017, respectively.

“This draft report, presented to the NEC, remains a work in progress and will be enriched through visits to various provinces and engagements with regions and branches by the secretary-general and a team led by the organising department. The final report is slated for presentation to the national general council in 2025,” said Mbalula.

“The special NEC deliberated on the probing question of whether recent national and provincial election results reflect a judgment on the ANC’s success in fulfilling its historic mandate for a united, nonracial, nonsexist, democratic, equal and prosperous society.”

Mbalula will be touring the country speaking to ANC branches as part of finalising the diagnostic report, which will focus on the integrity of individual members of the ANC, its branches and its regions.

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