EDITORIAL: ANC ‘due diligence’ farce

There are few things less inclined to strike fear into the heart of a delinquent aspirant mayor than the threat of a “due diligence” by the ANC.

Two months ago, Murunwa Makwarela resigned as Tshwane’s mayor after he provided an apparently forged court order to “prove” he’d been rehabilitated as an insolvent. Yet Makwarela’s qualifications had been “investigated” by the ANC, which said: “He showed us the document and we believed him.”

So is it any surprise that there is less than bubbling confidence in Joburg’s new mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, amid claims that his company, iThemba Lama Afrika, misappropriated funeral policy contributions?

Gwamanda is a member of the tiny minority party Al Jama-ah, and he was elected only thanks to the backing of the ANC and the EFF.

Yet Al Jama-ah president Ganief Hendricks said the ANC had “checked [Gwamanda] out. I had a meeting with the secretary-general of the ANC and he said it’s all clear.”

As bus company Intercape will tell you, Fikile Mbalula’s say-so is about as reliable as Eskom power, in the dead of winter, fired by submersible coal. 

The DA’s Mpho Phalatse, meanwhile, says there is more evidence to come. Does another embarrassing denouement for the ANC and its coalition partners loom?