Mngxitama, Kunene trying to divide us: EFF

Economic Freedom Fighters MP Andile Mngxitama is trying to divide the EFF with the help of businessman Kenny Kunene, the party said on Thursday.

"The EFF has it on good authority that throughout his engagement with the EFF and leaked newspaper letters, fighter Mngxitama was under the guidance and tutelage of Kenny Kunene and Gayton McKenzie," the organisation said in a statement.

Kunene and McKenzie founded the Patriotic Alliance before the May 2014 elections. Kunene has since left the party.

The EFF was reacting to an SABC interview in which Mngxitama expressed his dissatisfaction with the party.

In the interview, aired on Wednesday, Mngxitama said he had expressed his concern regarding jailed EFF North West leader Papiki Babuile, who was reportedly still receiving a salary.

The party should not allow Babuile to draw the salary and run the party from behind bars, he told the broadcaster.

Babuile was recently convicted of the murder of African National Congress regional secretary David Chika in 2012. He is appealing against his 12-year sentence.

The EFF claimed Mngxitama's interview was conducted in Kunene's house.

"It is a matter of fact that the puppet masters of fighter Mngxitama are Kenny Kunene and Gayton Mackenzie, the ex-convicts and former fraudsters who tried politics and dismally failed."

Mngxitama, the party's commissar for land, declined nomination as an additional member of the party's command team at the national people's assembly in Bloemfontein in December last year. He said his "revolutionary consciousness" would not allow him to accept the nomination.

The party said it meet Mngxitama after the conference and raised concerns about his "divisive practices and conduct".

"The leadership reminded him that when closing the National People's Assembly, the commander-in-chief [Julius Malema] made a commitment that we will never purge members who declined or accepted nomination for leadership."

On Thursday, Mngxitama took to Twitter to deny that the SABC interview took place in Kunene's house.

"I have never been to Kenny Kunene's house."

"Kenny Kunene is not my friend. I know Gayton and do talk to him. but [sic] why are we even dragging these people's name [sic] to EFF issues?" he tweeted.

Mngxitama said he raised the Babuile matter internally.