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Dear comrade Supra,
It is with a heavy heart that I have come to this extremely uncomfortable decision to write you an open letter to express my thoughts on some of the recent political developments unfolding in our province.
My organisational and ideological orientation has embedded in me an appreciation to always ventilate matters of the organisation internally within the structures of the movement.
However, the recent developments have rendered asunder any notion of containing internally the matters I am about to ventilate.
Your recent efforts to publicly cast aspersions on my integrity and to soil my name in the court of public opinion have further served to strengthen my resolve to write to you in this manner .
As I was busy agonising whether to write to you this letter, a constant question kept nagging me: How did we get to here?
It has been 20 years since we both tasted our first significant defeat when our candidates – comrades OJ Tselapedi and Duma Ndleleni – were defeated as provincial chairperson and secretary, respectively, in the 1998 ANC provincial conference at the Mmabatho Convention Centre by the formidable team led by comrade Popo Molefe.
I was the ANC Youth League regional secretary of the Eastern Region and you worked for the ANC in the provincial office.
This defeat did not dampen our spirit. We persevered until we both got elected into the provincial executive committee (PEC) in 2005 at the Ben Marais conference in Rustenburg, you as the provincial secretary and me as a PEC and provincial working committee member. We continued working together despite our different preferences at Polokwane in 2007, where you preferred a third term and I supported former president Jacob Zuma. This relationship continued until I had to leave the province in 2012 after I was elected into the national executive committee (NEC) in Mangaung.
I am sketching the above brief history of our political journey to demonstrate that ours has been a two-decades-long journey of comradeship in the course of pursuing the national democratic revolution. I must say I have mixed feelings about these years of my association with you.
I say so because you have been such a disappointment, not only to me, but to most of the comrades we travelled this long and arduous journey together. Comrades like Nono Maloyi, China Dodovu, Thabo Mosiane, Themba Gwabeni, Saliva Molapisi to mention but a few. You have become an antithesis of the values and ethos which guided us – selflessness, of service to our revolution and our people, of subordinating one’s self-interest to the interest of the organisation and the people. You have betrayed all these values and ethos in the altar of greed, corruption, self-preservation, dictatorship and a sense of invincibility.
Yours has been a political experiment gone horribly wrong.
Before I elaborate on the reasons that make me come to the above conclusion, let me dispose of the matters that concern me and for which you have recently found your voice and spoke about publicly on several platforms:
A FRIVOLOUS CASE AGAINST ME
You will recall that immediately after the dissolution of the PEC we both served in 2009, an elaborate agenda was hatched against those who were serving in the disbanded PEC. This agenda included removing from deployment all those former PEC members and ensuring that they never come back to the leadership of our organisation.
You will recall that the former PEC members were characterised as the “N4 Mafia” by the late comrade Sicelo Shiceka, former NEC member deployed to North West and minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs. Ironically, and in a strange twist of fate, it was Shiceka who subsequently got entangled in a web of fraud and corruption allegations in the ministry. He was investigated and found to have had his hand in the cookie jar by the former public protector Thuli Madonsela and was fired by former President Zuma.
I am quite certain you remember a famous assertion comrade Shiceka made: “I am breaking the back of the N4 Mafia in the North West”. Of course, I will pardon you for your temporary loss of memory regarding this inconvenient truth. It happens to the best of hypocrites.
This characterisation as the “N4 Mafia” heralded the beginning of a well-orchestrated, well-planned political onslaught and persecution against us. The onslaught took various forms and shapes. As part of this onslaught, an anonymous and highly defamatory pamphlet that made spurious and unfounded allegations against me was produced and clandestinely distributed around Madibeng in April 2009.
Consistent with this political agenda, a letter was dispatched by comrade Shiceka in his capacity as minister to Premier Maureen Modiselle calling for my suspension as the municipal manager of Madibeng Local Municipality, which suspension finally happened.
You will recall that I excused myself from the disciplinary hearing because the whole thing was a complete sham and a charade, where the outcome was predetermined. The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), a truly independent and impartial body, was to provide me with a fair hearing.
As you are aware, after a laborious, fair and year-long CCMA process, all the trumped-up charges against me were rubbished by senior Commissioner Joseph Tsabadi in December 2011.
In his 82-page judgement, Commissioner Tsabadi ruled that all charges against me were without merit and dismissed them. He found that the reasons for the initial termination of my services were unfair, invalid, unreasonable and were simply capricious. He ordered that I must be reinstated as the municipal manager and be paid for the entire duration of my dismissal
As you are aware, the municipality sought a legal opinion and was advised that the prospect of succeeding in challenging the CCMA ruling was nonexistent. Hence the municipality fully complied with the CCMA award and I was reinstated to my position and given compensation. For my own sanity, I could not stay in that position. The municipality and I agreed that I should leave before the expiry of my contract.
The other frivolous case opened at the behest of comrade Shiceka, based on similar concocted charges, also collapsed on the basis of the discovery of the lies unearthed during the CCMA process and thus was withdrawn in court and closed by the National Prosecuting Authority.
I am sure all honest and law-abiding South Africans who believe in the legal jurisprudence established in our country by our constitutional democracy will accept and embrace a legal outcome premised on an impartial, objective, just and fair examination of the evidence presented. Anything other than this constitutes the rule of the jungle, upon which our society must frown.
Of course, not for you. As far as you and your ilk are concerned, this legal processes I painstakingly underwent to clear my name doesn’t mean anything. I still have a case to answer in your kangaroo court in front of a lynch mob.
A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY PILGRIMAGE
I listened to you when addressing a rented crowd mainly from Madibeng and Mahikeng outside the venue of your PEC meeting on Wednesday, May 9 in Mahikeng, where again you sought to cast aspersion on my person. You announced that you will be taking leave of absence as the Premier, to travel the length and breadth of our beautiful province for 18 months.
Let me put it to you that what you were doing was practically announcing a programme of anarchy and destabilisation. You were essentially announcing a programme of counter-revolutionary pilgrimage in the province.
You did the same after the Polokwane conference. I know this for sure because I pleaded with you and sought to discourage you from defying the elected Polokwane leadership at one of our sessions at my house. All my pleadings fell on deaf ears. You embarked on a similar programme visiting regions where you actively encouraged comrades to be part of the defiance of the NEC leadership and not to participate in the elections. Owing to your close proximity with some of leaders who did not make it in Polokwane, in particular Mbhazima Shilowa, you conspired against our organisation and actively encouraged our comrades to be part of the initiatives leading to the formation of the Congress of the People (Cope). You made sure key comrades left the ANC after Cope was formed. In fact, you were about to leave the ANC to join Cope, had there been no last-minute intervention to persuade you to remain in the ANC. You know very well by who.
I see your pilgrimage was launched today in Madibeng at what was billed as the anticorruption and a Hands Off Supra, Hands Off Mayor Jostine Mothibe march by the same rented crowd led by the notorious group called the Fearfokol. The group has been disrupting branch general meetings (BGMs) and assaulting comrades who differ with mayor Mothibe. The same group severely assaulted a female comrade from Mothotlung in Ward 20 last year before the Nasrec conference. She ended up being admitted to Brits Hospital for simply holding a different view from the one held by the North West PEC regarding leadership preferences. That same Fearfokol came to my branch before the Nasrec, conference to intimidate and disrupt our BGM and they ended up spilling beer on me. The same group disrupted the Bojanala list conference during local government list processes and assaulted those disagreeing with your group to a point where they had to literally run away and abandon the conference.
The list of the notorious spell of the Fearfokol is too long to mention on this letter. They brutalise women, terrorise those who disagree with you and beat up defenceless ANC members in their own branches. You in effect possess a paramilitary outfit in the form of the Fearfokol in Madibeng – ready to march, intimidate, assault and even kill if necessary, all in your name.
The one thing I am certain about is that today’s march had nothing to do with the campaign against corruption, but everything to do with a campaign of anarchy targeted at your opponents in the province that you announced on Wednesday. This anarchy will surely spread to other regions as you continue with your pilgrimage.
I am also aware that you arrived yesterday in Madibeng to personally direct this programme of anarchy. I am aware that officials in the municipality were instructed by the mayor to process payments of some companies owned by the ringleaders of the Fearfokol coterie, so that they could pay for the taxis to transport the marchers. I am also aware that the materials to print the posters were collected from the mayor’s office and taken to the ANC parliamentary constituency offices in Brits.
Well done Rre Mahumapelo, your pilgrimage of counter-revolution and anarchy was successfully launched today with the aid of your most trusted PEC members and mayor Mothibe. The same mayor who defrauded the municipality and later paid the money before her appointment. The same mayor whose litany of corruption allegations are too many to mention – the most recent being the scandal around the leasing of vehicles. She just returned from a R1 million overseas junket. What a perfect ally to engage on a programme of destabilising the ANC.
LIFESTYLE AUDITS
You proudly proclaimed during your presentation of this year’s state of the province address that you will embark on a programme of lifestyle audits. I put it to you that you were simply grandstanding and that you are not committed, actually you are dead scared of a lifestyle audit on you.
One of the mysteries you will have to help us unravel is how you have become an instant millionaire – maybe billionaire. How come you have amassed so much wealth in your four years as a Premier?
Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor recently listed your riches on a social media post, which included among other businesses two McDonald’s outlets, several farms, several filling stations around the province, a boutique hotel, learner transportation buses and shares in the Mega City Mall. As far as I am aware, you have never denied publicly that you own these businesses.
I must say you have had a remarkable transformation from the man who used to drive 300km from Mahikeng in an old VW Jetta to come to my house in Hartbeespoort, almost monthly, to ask for financial assistance to survive during the difficult period between 2009 and 2011. I had to justify to my family why I was sharing the little I had with you. Fast forward to 2018, and you have suddenly acquired an unexplained and vast amount of wealth.
As you are aware, I went through a five-year lifestyle audit by the South African Revenue Service in 2011/12 and I was able to justify every cent I have and every asset I acquired. I can guarantee you it’s a thorough-going and meticulous process. Get ready for it.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that you have reached and surpassed the stage of incorrigibility, for what its worth, I would like to make an earnest appeal to you and your conscience comrade Supra.
- Stop abusing the trust our organisation has bestowed on you to lead the ANC and government in the province;
- Stop abusing the resources the ANC government has placed at your disposal to engage in actions that seek to harm and impede the very organisation and its members you are supposed to protect; and
- Stop clutching at straws. Face your demons and heed the calls reverberating throughout the province and do the honourable thing
Yours,
Philly Mapulane
Mapulane is an ANC member in Madibeng ward 30 in the North West
