The ANC membership of seven men linked to recent sanitation protests in the Cape has been temporarily suspended, a party official said.
|||Cape Town - The ANC membership of seven men linked to recent sanitation protests in Cape Town has been temporarily suspended, a Western Cape party official said on Tuesday.
“This is the result of continuous defiance of the organisational instruction to desist from engaging in activities that bring the African National Congress into disrepute,” provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile said.
“They are not to take part in meetings of the ANC or speak on its behalf.”
The men are Jaji Diniso, Sthembele Majova, Thembela Mbanjwa, Yanga Mjingwana, Bongani Ngcombolo, Loyiso Nkohla and Bongile Zanazo.
Nkohla is an ANC councillor.
He and Andile Lili, a former councillor and provincial ANC youth league leader, had already appeared before the regional disciplinary committee, Mjongile said.
The others would appear before the committee within 30 days.
Lili was expelled as a councillor in March after being found guilty of taking part in the illegal demolition of houses and for making derogatory comments to Khayelitsha residents.
The ANC suspended him for bringing the party into disrepute.
He is challenging the expulsion in the Western Cape High Court.
Nkohla was given a three-year suspended sentence last year for disrupting President Jacob Zuma’s centenary speech at the Good Hope Centre.
Cape Town has been hit by a number of human waste dumping incidents in the past few months by people protesting about sanitation in informal settlements.
Many believed the portable flush toilets (PFTs) being rolled out by the city were no better than the bucket system.
Human faeces was again dumped on the steps of the provincial legislature last month.
This happened at the same time nine men appeared in the Bellville Magistrate's Court for allegedly dumping human waste at Cape Town International Airport.
They are Nkohla, Lili, Mjingwana, Diniso, Zanazo, Mbanjwa, Ben Dyani, Bantubakhe Mqobodiya, and Wandisile Mkapa.
They allegedly dumped 10 buckets of faeces at the airport's departures terminal on June 25. They are charged under the Civil Aviation Act and face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.
Lili was previously arrested with more than 100 others at a Cape Town train station in June for allegedly plotting to dump human waste in the city.
On June 4, a group of people in Khayelitsha threw human waste at a bus and cars used for transport to a green economy event hosted by Western Cape premier Helen Zille.
A day before that, two men dumped faeces on the steps of the Western Cape legislature in a protest about the PFTs. - Sapa