South Africa - Johannesburg - 05 April 2024 - uMkhonto weSizwe party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela speaking at The Star's Political Dialogue held at the Joburg Theatre ahead of the elections on May 29.Picture: Itumeleng English/ Independent Newspaper.
This week has been a busy one for the Umkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) with the news that some of the signatures it submitted to the Electoral Commission (IEC) could have been forged.
This has prompted the IEC to launch a probe into this matter with the announcement that the SAPS has been roped in to investigate the allegations.
The party has since welcomed the probe insisting that these allegations against the party were made by a ‘disgruntled’ former member with ambitions of getting himself into senior leadership position.
On the weekend, City Press reported that the man behind the allegations is Lennox Ntsodo, a former volunteer of the party in the Western Cape, who is alleged to have told police in that province in a statement that the party allegedly forged signatures that would see it eligible to appear on the May 29 ballot.
On Tuesday, national police commissioner, Fannie Masemola confirmed that the police have lodged an investigation into the matter.
In a statement, Ntsondo indicated that the forgery happened in February after he allegedly appointed a team of about 20 people to assist with the mass forgery of signatures after the IEC rejected the MK Party's initial application for registration.
These he says were done by fraudulently obtaining names, ID numbers, and cellphone numbers of job seekers from a database of the Cape Metro Council.
In his affidavit, Ntsodo said this was done at the house of the MK Party’s secretary-general in the Western Cape and South Africa’s former ambassador to Qatar, Faizel Moosa with daily reports of the team’s progress being made to MK Party’s Western Cape chairperson, Fumanekile Booi.
However, reacting to the investigation and accusations of fraud, MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said they welcomed the police investigation even though this was the work of a disgruntled former member who has since been sanctioned after it emerged that he is a shady character.
He said the MK Party is the one that responded once it completed its due diligence process and was made aware of 'questionable transactions’ by its former ally, Ntsondo.
““We are the aggrieved party here after we found out that he(Ntsondo) was involved in questionable transactions and realised then that we could not put him on the list. I guess, that angered him and all of a sudden now he is coming with an affidavit and opening the case.
On the establishment of the case, Ndhlela said the party welcomes the investigation and told Newzroom Afrika that the IEC was targeting the party as it wanted for the MKP to remove Bonginkosi Khanyile and Visvin Reddy from its candidate list as a pre-condition for the party not to lose contesting the elections.
“We have received the papers and are reviewing them to see why they want us to remove Bonginkosi Khanyile and Visvin Reddy,” he said.
Speaking to The Mercury this week, Moosa said he had only heard about the issue of fake signatures through reports in the media.
“I was not aware of it. I was collecting signatures from across our membership in the province. Lennox was only one of the team out there collecting signatures.
“Yes, they did use my house for the verification process because they didn’t have a place to work from. So I offered my house but at no stage did I have any knowledge of signatures being forged,” Moosa told The Mercury.
The Commission was yet to comment on the probe but revealed that it was leaving it to Parliament and affected individuals to deal with any alleged forgery during the collection of signatures by political parties and independent candidates.
Saturday Star
siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za