ANC national executive committee member Tony Yengeni did nothing wrong in accepting a discount on a luxury vehicle and should not have got a prison sentence.
This is according to ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, who strongly defended the decision to allow the convicted fraudster to chair the working group on crime and corruption at the ANC election manifesto workshop held last week.
"The conviction of Comrade Tony Yengeni still worries many in the ANC. What are we saying? If you negotiate a vehicle in this country you dare not negotiate a discount because that's corruption? How many other South Africans should then go to have a prison sentence for three years? It worries me personally," said Duarte, speaking to the Sunday Times from her home in Johannesburg. 
Yengeni was sentenced to four years in prison in 2013 for defrauding parliament in relation to his acceptance of 47% discount on a luxury Mercedes-Benz 4x4 vehicle in 1998. He was chairman of parliament's joint standing committee on defence at the time when the arms deal was being negotiated.
Duarte said Yengeni's only fault was not declaring the discount to parliament. However, many other MPs were guilty of the same offence, she said.
"How many other MPs over the years have received shares in companies and have not declared [them], on all sides of the spectrum? I don't think the issue that [Yengeni] faced should condemn him for life. The contribution he is making is valuable. Tony Yengeni did make a mistake. He paid the price for that mistake. He cannot be condemned to a life sentence of hatred by people who spend their lives hating other people."Duarte, who is in her second stint as deputy secretary-general, said some of the divisions in the ANC were caused by people refusing to accept the outcomes of the elective conference at Nasrec in December, and the leadership that was elected there. She said the party's national dispute resolution committee was constantly having to deal with disputes arising from past divisions.
"Some of the disputes are a hangover from political processes like Nasrec. There were a few [disputes] like that where people still refused to accept there's a new leadership. It doesn't matter who you supported before, once a leadership is elected, you fall in line. The old saying has always been, those who didn't support a particular leadership must be the first to defend it."
She admitted, however, that there were instances shortly after the Nasrec conference in which some people were being purged for supporting former president Jacob Zuma, but said others were using this excuse to hide their wrongdoing or incompetence.
"Sometimes people hide behind the generalisation of being purged when they know [they] did something wrong. It doesn't matter whose side you were on - if you are wrong, you are wrong, and you can't hide behind the fact that you were on one or another side. There was purging up to a point."
On Zuma's forced exit from the presidency, Duarte - who was close to the former president and supported the presidential candidature of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma - said it could have been handled better."Obviously, people will say Jessie Duarte supported president Zuma. I worked with him and one doesn't work with somebody and you are unable to have a view. For me, I thought we could have handled it better. There was a strong voice that wanted him to go; in the end that strong voice won the day. We need to move on. We need to heal the ANC and make sure the ANC wins the elections in 2019."
She also defended Zuma's right to attend ANC NEC meetings since his exit from the party and government, saying the ANC would be foolish not to tap into his organisational wisdom.
The Sunday Times reported last week that some NEC members were uncomfortable with Zuma's presence in meetings.
Duarte also expressed deep frustration at the use of courts to settle disputes in the ANC. She said she was particularly unhappy with the High Court in Pietermaritzburg's decision to interdict the ANC's KwaZulu-Natal conference late at night.
"I'm the first to admit that there were some mistakes there, not all processes had been completed properly, so perhaps the judge did have a point. But the unfairness is, do you ever in good jurisprudence give a person who is to defend a position exactly 25 minutes to do so? What kind of good response can that person give you?"..