MK veterans at loggerheads over fraudulent membership claims

With just three months to go before the ANC’s elective conference‚ divisions within the party continue to widen.

This comes as the ANC military veterans are at loggerheads with each other‚ with the MK National Council crying fowl over the legitimacy of the uMkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) leadership.

A divided MKMVA held its conference in June at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg where they took a resolution to back former AU Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini -Zuma to be the ANC’s next president in December.

"We are obviously challenging the legitimacy of that conference [because] that conference was not in accordance with the what the ANC had instructed the ad hoc committee to facilitate and was also not in accordance with our agreement which Kebby (Maphatsoe) repudiated‚" said former chief of the SANDF General Siphiwe Nyanda.

On the eve on the conference‚ some MKMVA leaders and national executive committee members publicly questioned the composition of delegates and the status of the conference but it went ahead.

This was also questioned by MKMVA NEC member Ike Moroe who was among the four leaders who didn't attend the MKMVA conference in June due to alleged membership irregularities.

Then MKMVA deputy chairman Teenage Monama‚ general secretary Dumisani Nduli and his deputy Tshidiso Paka also boycotted Maphatsoe's conference which President Jacob Zuma attended and delivered a message of support at.

"Evidence would show that that conference was fraudulent because sixty percent who attended that conference are not bona fide military veterans. With the evidence that we have got‚ the majority of the people who attended comrade Kebby's conference are not bona fide‚" said Moroe.

The MK National Council has called on all former MK combatants to be present during their conference to restore unity.

Both MKMVA and the MK Council claim to represent the interests of the former MK soldiers‚ but are yet to form a united front.

About 1‚800 delegates will attend the two-day conference which will now take place between October 6 and 8 where they aim to look at the challenges facing individual former combatants and disunity bedevilling the MKMVA.

The MK Council conference has been rescheduled to take place next month to allow the ANC NEC to deliberate on the decision taken by Maphatsoe‚ among other ANC matters‚ according to Nyanda.

They are also yet to pronounce on their preferred candidate for ANC president.

- TimesLIVE