The ANC’s decision to shuffle NEC member and Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo as the principal of its political school has opened the governing party up to a legal quagmire.
This was said by irate NEC members, who did not want to be named because they are not allowed to speak to the media.
The members said the OR Tambo School of Leadership is registered as a public benefit organisation (PBO), which prohibits control by a political party as one of the conditions to qualify for an exemption from the income tax act and the political party funding act.
They lamented that if not a PBO, then the SA Revenue Services (Sars) would require the school to pay income tax, and the party political funding act would require that its donors be disclosed as part of the ANC’s declarations.
Masondo, who was elbowed out of the school after a process that was engineered by his political arch rival and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, and rubber stamped by NEC members in Boksburg last weekend, is contemplating to resign as a board member, said the NEC members.
In prescribing the independence of PBOs from party political interests, said the NEC members, Sars provides that such an entity should be independent of any political party influence.
The clause, which we have seen, states that “a PBO may not use its resources directly or indirectly to support, advance, or oppose any political party”.
The ANC’s pronouncement that its national executive committee decided to replace Masondo with former Gauteng premier David Makhura would therefore make it difficult for the school to defend its independence as a PBO.
The NEC members said in terms of the school’s governance policies, only the board, led by former president Kgalema Motlanthe can appoint and remove the principal.
“With this interference, Luthuli House created conditions that make it difficult for the school to get tax exemptions,” said a concerned NEC member.
“You are instructing the board that this person should be the principal, whereas it should be the board that decides this.
“Legally, it is going to be very difficult to sustain the position that the school is not an ANC-controlled entity,” said another NEC member.
Sunday World learnt the move to remove Masondo was orchestrated by Mbalula as part of his strategy to become party president at the next national congress in 2027. It made Makhura the latest addition to Mbalula’s inner circle of the faction affectionately known as Project2027, which is spearheading his presidential mission.
Mbalula told Sunday World this week he stopped President Cyril Ramaphosa from appointing Makhura as minister because he wanted the man to be full-time at Luthuli House.
Makhura then became head of ANC political education and coordinator of the political education subcommittee.
He was also tasked with coordinating the party’s key drafting committee. ANC insiders said Makhura’s elevation to the OR Tambo School also marks Project2027’s expansion and the capture of strategic structures within the ANC.
The faction has already annexed the ANC Youth League and the ANC Women’s League – two crucial structures used to lobby and isolate opponents during ANC internal conferences.
Other than Mbalula, two others mentioned as enforcers of Project2027 include the head of organising at Luthuli House, Mdu Manana, and Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams.
“Mbalula’s presidential ambition and his faction will stop at nothing to capture everything they can use as a tool to campaign, and the OR Tambo School is one such place,” said an insider sympathetic to Masondo.
Mbalula rubbished the claims, saying Makhura was not positioned for strategic placement among national officials at the 2027 national conference.
But Mbalula admitted that he intends to give Makhura more power within the ANC head office, albeit not for factional purposes.
In fact, he charged, “Makhura took a big pay cut by not going to the government.
“I negotiated with Makhura for the longest time to convince him to come to Luthuli House.
“The president wanted to place him in government, in the cabinet, but I said ‘leave this man here at Luthuli House’.
“We work here at Luthuli House together, and you cannot find Makhura in petty things. He is always focused and does what he loves.
