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Food parcels have wedged more divisions between the ANC and SA Communist Party (SACP) alliance in Mpumalanga’s Ehlanzeni region over a donation made by controversial Enlightened Christian Gathering leader Shepherd Bushiri.
ANC Ehlanzeni deputy conveyor Ngrayi Ngwenya, who has been distributing parcels donated by Bushiri in Nkomazi, has accused Bhobert Nkosi, the SACP secretary in the Phillip Radebe District, of being a national of Eswatini after the SACP released a scathing statement accusing Mpumalanga Social Development MEC Thandi Shongwe of marketing Bushiri’s church, of which she is a member.
According to an SACP statement, the preacher only donated 35 food parcels, but received disproportionate recognition from Shongwe.
“Firstly, we were fed with the propaganda that Bushiri had donated food parcels to the Mpumalanga provincial department of social development. However, according to information at the disposal of the SACP, Bushiri only donated 35 food parcels to the department,” Nkosi said.
“We are aware that there are many churches and businesspeople who have made more significant donations, but they did not receive the same treatment from [Shongwe]. We believe that the MEC is using the plight of the people during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic to market her church and Bushiri, and this is uncalled for,” he added.
The SACP called on the Covid-19 provincial command council to take charge of the distribution of food parcels because Shongwe was using it for her own promotion and that of her church.
Read: Mpumalanga MEC demands evidence before acting against comrade
The party also called on the council to investigate if the name of the department of social development had not been used to get food parcels and other donations that found their way to Ngwenya, “who has also become a self-appointed spokesperson for Bushiri in the province and has been using the plight of the poor to self-promote”.
ANC politicians, said the statement, were also channelling benefits to villages and townships where they came from instead of benefiting all deserving citizens in the province.
“It has now become an established custom that Shongwe only serves the Nkomazi community because she hails from that area, and that deputy legislature speaker Vusi Mkhatshwa serves the people of Barberton because he is from that town.
They have turned Mpumalanga into a big Bantustan that dispenses patronage to communities where the politicians reside and along political factional lines.
“We call on the ANC provincial leadership to act against these reactionary and backward Bantustan tendencies,” reads the statement.
However, Ngwenya hit back in a social media recording. He said he had delivered food parcels in Schulzendal and also donated building materials to a destitute family of 16 living in a two-roomed dwelling in Steenbok.
He singled out Nkosi, who, as SACP regional secretary, signed the statement.
“[Nkosi] is not from South Africa. He is from Swaziland. He was lucky to get a South African identity document in certain ways. He must go to Manzini and Mbabane to help there. I want to tell him that for threatening to get Shongwe arrested, we will use our right to investigate his nationality,” Ngwenya said.
At Steenbok, Ngwenya continued with his attack.
“This is ANC work. We’re shocked by all these people who criticise the work of the ANC. That’s why I’ve been talking about [Nkosi] … We’ve investigated him and found that he is not a South African. When I die I will not need a permit to be buried in the country because I am South African, he will need a permit to be buried in Swaziland,” Ngwenya said.
Nkosi declined to comment.
“I’m not responding now; maybe next week,” he said.
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