Quitting of Khoza a great loss to the ANC: Mashatile

Gauteng ANC chairperson Paul Mashatile says the party has suffered a huge blow with outspoken ANC MP Makhosi Khoza announcing her resignation as a party member on Thursday.

Khoza‚ a strong critic of President Jacob Zuma‚ has had a rocky relationship with the party after speaking out against corruption and also publicly announcing that she would support the no-confidence motion against President Jacob Zuma in a secret ballot held in Parliament on August 8.

"Any one person leaving the organisation is great loss to us and I'm sure as we change the way we do things in the ANC we would wish that some of them would come back. We are busy doing that and you know we have a conference coming where there will be new programmes‚ there will be change of leadership‚" said Mashatile.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the Human Settlement Developments Summit in Boksburg‚ east of Johannesburg‚ on Thursday‚ which he attended in his capacity as the MEC for Human Settlements in Gauteng.

"The ANC is an organisation that all of us join voluntarily so if anybody wishes to leave‚ there's nothing that we can do. But I don’t think it’s correct [for her] to say the ANC is a corrupt organisation. We may have challenges with certain individuals but the ANC in fact has been at the forefront of fighting corruption. There are good men and women in the ANC and I think they'll be able to continue to strive to ensure that the ANC deals with these challenges‚" said Mashatile.

Khoza announced on Thursday that she was quitting the ANC after a breakdown in the relationship between her and the party leadership.

Khoza‚ who faced two counts of ill-discipline in July for statements she made in four Facebook posts - on July 7. July 20 (two posts) and July 21 - as well as remarks she made at the Conference for the Future of South Africa in Johannesburg‚ which was organised by Save SA‚ failed to pitch for disciplinary proceedings at the party's provincial offices in Durban on two consecutive occasions.

In a lengthy Facebook post‚ Khoza said she was unbothered about the outcome of the hearing. She has also in the past argued that the party's constitution provides that disciplinary proceedings may not be used as a means of stifling debate or denying members their basic democratic rights.

Mashatile said the ANC would emerge as a united front from the upcoming elective conference in December and would consist of dedicated leaders who would fight against state capture‚ corruption and seek to regain the confidence of many South Africans.