Durban - ANC eThekwini Municipality councillors by Thursday afternoon were headed to former president Jacob Zuma’s KwaDakwudunuse homestead in the village of KwaNxamalala, in Nkandla, bearing a gift in the form of a bull which is a customary gesture of respect.
On the significance of the gift that they are set to hand over to Zuma upon their arrival in Nkandla, ANC eThekwini councillor Ntandoyenkosi Khuzwayo said: “It’s customary for us as Africans that when you visit a person in their own home you bring a gift. Particularly when you are visiting the male head of a household you bring a gift in the form of a cow or cattle.”
However, more significantly the visit happens despite the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal yesterday saying that it was in the dark about the visit to the former head of state’s controversial R246 million home in the north of the province.
One leader of the entourage said they had not broken any rules as they were not visiting Zuma as a structure but as individuals of the party.
On Wednesday, ANC KZN spokesperson Nhlakanipho Ntombela distanced the ANC in the province from the visit to Zuma’s Nkandla homestead by eThekwini ANC councillors, claiming not to be privy as to who the organisers of the visit were and under which banner they were undertaking the visit.
Ntombela said the visit had not been organised by the region or the province, and that the party did not have any comment to pass on about something they were not privy to.
“I don’t know how the ANC is expected to comment on this. The ANC always visits Nxamalala, it doesn’t announce to the whole country that it is going to see Nxamalala.
“Even the chief whip of the ANC doesn’t know this, the region of eThekwini as a structure doesn’t know, so we don’t know who they are. We can’t approve something that we don’t know anything about,” Ntombela said.
Political analyst Professor Bheki Mngomezulu, from UWC, warned that the visit, which has been undertaken without the stamp of approval from the party’s provincial leadership, would cause more problems for the ANC.
“As much as people can visit the former president in their individual capacity, that is fine, but these are people in a governance structure and in that case you would expect that they would read from the same script as the provincial leadership.
“The provincial leadership that is currently leading KZN, representing the ANC, are basically the face of the organisation in the province, so even if people are (going) to Nkandla on their own as new councillors, they should have at least touched base with the provincial leadership,” Mngomezulu said.
Khuzwayo, however, poured cold water over the fact that the provincial leadership of the party had not been in the know about the visit.
“It (the visit) does not need approval at any level. We are not a structure. We are going there as individuals to an individual. It can’t be seen as ill discipline to visit a comrade. What is ill disciplined is to do something that is anti-organisational, but this is not,” Khuzwayo said.
Political Bureau