Fikile Mbalula cracks down on ANC ill-discipline with charges against Yengeni and Bapela:
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula has cracked down on ill-discipline in the party and has initiated charges against Jacob Zuma loyalist Tony Yengeni for bringing it into disrepute.
Mbalula has also brought charges against national executive committee member and deputy police minister Obed Bapela over a visit to Morocco last year in violation of ANC policy.
He announced the disciplinary crackdown on Monday at a briefing in Cape Town ahead of the ANC’s 113th anniversary celebrations, which will culminate in an address to its January 8 commemoration by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday.
The ANC uses the annual event to focus on its policy priorities and programmes inside and outside government for the year ahead.
In response to questions, Mbalula said that he had informed Yengeni, a former member of the ANC national executive committee, that he would be charging him over his online comments, which brought the party into disrepute.
Mbalula described Yengeni, who was jailed in 2006 for lying to parliament over a luxury vehicle he received from a defence contractor, as a “political Casanova” who “thinks he is a law unto himself”.
He said Yengeni was “spewing vagrant political views that are embraced by a few malcontents who are opposed to the ANC”.
“He will be charged. I have called him. I have informed him via SMS that we are going to charge him,” Mbalula said. “We will bring him before the disciplinary committee of the ANC.”
Yengeni was a “very ill-disciplined member of the ANC” who “supports everything about the uMkhonto weSizwe party”.
Mbalula said he would be charged over a number of statements he had made which contradicted ANC policy and brought it into disrepute and that action would be taken against other errant party members.
“Discipline in the ANC is important. We have seen other people on Twitter every day … leaders of the ANC tweeting things that bring the ANC into disrepute. They too will be attended to very soon.”
Mbalula said there was “nothing wrong about raising views but to attack the organisation and cast aspersions on the leadership of the ANC, that will not be tolerated”.
“They will be brought to book. They will be brought to discipline.”
The national ANC was aware that some provincial leaders had decided to ignore ill-discipline, despite their responsibility to instil order, and would intervene where they failed to do so.
“The time to talk and not discipline people who bring the organisation into disrepute is over,” he said.
Bapela would be charged for “distorting ANC policy” over his trip to Morocco and had been informed of this.
Mbalula said the only issue on the agenda for the national executive committee meeting on Monday evening would be the adoption of the January 8 statement, which had been processed by party officials on Sunday.
The January 8 rally will be held in marquees at Mandela Park in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, an ANC stronghold, to “communicate a message” that the party wanted to “reconnect with our people” in the Western Cape and elsewhere.
Mbalula said that committee would “reflect upon” the decision by the South African Communist Party to contest elections on its own and that it had an “appointment” with the party at which it would brief the ANC leadership on the decision.
He said the ANC was against the communist party going it alone as this would weaken the alliance further and was a “catastrophe” from his party’s point of view.
However, they would engage internally, and not in the media, Mbalula said.
Yengeni did not respond to calls from the Mail & Guardian.
Photojournalism: The price of bearing witness:
It took mere minutes for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning feature photograph of a collapsed, frail, famine-starved child, hungrily eyed by a vulture, to elicit an outcry from the readers of The New York Times when it was first published on 26 March, 1993.
The horror was in response to a question of ethics on the part of the photographer, South African Kevin Carter. Questions raised included whether it was ethical for him to prioritise a picture over a child’s welfare. Whether he should have intervened, and helped the child, instead of taking the photograph.
This struck a chord with me while leading an intervention by Danish humanitarian NGO DanChurchAid with local and international journalists, capturing accounts of loss and damage caused by Cyclone Idai in eastern Zimbabwe, in 2009, and in southern Malawi devastated by Cyclone Freddy in February 2023.
The same went for the imagery from Cyclone Chido in December 2024, the floods in Tanzania that resulted in 150 deaths in April 2024, as well as the heavy rains which devastated parts of Kenya, Somalia and other countries.
It brought to mind images of Amélia, the woman who gave birth in a mango tree during the floods that killed 700 people in Mozambique in February and March 2000. Ironically, that image of her baby, wrapped in dirty cloth and being rescued by a helicopter, helped raise millions of dollars for affected people.
The implication is that journalists and journalism can be catalysts for good, elevating the plight of the otherwise voiceless, in the remotest parts of the continent and the world, onto the global stage, soliciting assistance and raising awareness.
But critics say that although Carter’s photo increased awareness by highlighting the consequences of famine on children, it rendered animal life superior to the weakest in society, our children.
It later became known that the child was trying to reach a United Nations feeding centre a kilometre away in Ayod, in what is now South Sudan, and survived. Carter took his own life, at the age of 33, prompted by mental anguish according to his suicide letter, four short months after receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography award in 1994.
Photojournalists have an obligation to tell the visual story; that is their job. But nobody hears their stories, the stories of the personal cost of their jobs to their consciences and their souls. While social media might have numbed us to human suffering, the journalists whose job it is to tell the story, must still tell the story.
Thoko Chikondi, an award-winning photojournalist from Malawi, reflected: “I have many questions about this job. Do we really help people? You see the suffering but you cannot help. Even if I have 10 000 Malawi kwacha in my pocket the rules of the job say I cannot give it to them.”
Over the years, Chikondi has covered health disasters, including cholera outbreaks and Covid-19, where the risks to her own health have been high. But that is the price the silent witness must pay to tell the world the story.
She has seen a hospital — the only hospital for miles around — filled with sand, deposited by Cyclone Freddy, and medical staff scrambling to assist as patients died.
She has heard the anguish of mothers searching for their children during mudslides. Felt the plight of those left homeless, having lost every single one of their worldly possessions in a flash. She has witnessed mass burials and the torment of grief on those left behind.
Chikondi recounted being drenched in torrential rain, carrying her camera on her head tightly wrapped in a plastic bag, while wading through chest-deep “angry” flood waters, unsure of her next step, on a cold, dark night. And young men lifting her on their shoulders to take the pictures that graced the covers of newspapers around the world, bringing news of the devastating effect of Cyclone Freddy.
“I don’t know if you can say they did it because they understood that my job, and those pictures, would help them, or if it was just human kindness. These crises seem to bring out the humanity in people,” she said.
It’s been 30 years since the iconic image that triggered The Vulture and the Little Girl controversy. Where does the world stand today on photographic and journalistic ethics? Where is the outcry over the visual stories of today’s injustices and of climate change horrors?
It is clear that there is no global assistance coming to help address not only the socio-economic devastation, but the accompanying mental anguish of those affected by them.
Africa’s overdependence on aid is a story for another day but the fact that November’s COP29 failed the continent in such dramatic fashion, when the world has seen the images of death and destruction amounting to billions, predominantly affecting the world’s poorest, makes it clear it is time for us to rally together and focus on implementing the African Union climate strategy towards achieving the long-awaited African solution.
For now, this unaddressed issue simply means that the silent witnesses must continue to cover the continent’s pain at whatever personal cost.
Patience Ukama is a governance and communications specialist who heads communications for DanChurchAid Zimbabwe, the lead partner of the Utariri integrated biodiversity, climate change and livelihoods programme across the Zambezi Valley.
A thriving agricultural sector requires stability in Southern Africa:
A lot is happening in the world and I probably should not be focusing on vegetables. Still, I want to underscore that there must be greater collaboration in the Southern Africa region’s agricultural community to expand production and address the poverty issues.
We cannot afford trade friction such as Botswana and Namibia’s blocking vegetables and fruit imports from South Africa. Thankfully, Botswana has corrected this policy mistake and is gradually removing the restrictions.
And yes, no one disputes that both Namibia and Botswana should develop their domestic agricultural production.
My issue has been the unfair ban and restrictions on vegetables and citrus exports from South Africa to both countries. Consumers in both countries have had to pay more for food because of supply constraints.
Economist Ndaba Gaolathe, who is Botswana’s vice-president and finance minister, recently stated that: “Anything that requires tariffs to sustain it, even in the short term, is bad economics. What is happening now is that food and vegetables have become more expensive in Botswana. Low-income groups — people who are already struggling — are spending a larger percentage of their income on food.”
What Gaolathe raises here is very important and partly at the core of the points I raised elsewhere, highlighting that with the removal of the restrictions, the people of Botswana will now have better-priced and high-quality vegetables from South Africa.
In November 2024, South Africa’s vegetables were deflated (-2,6%). Meanwhile, in Botswana, vegetable price inflation was still in double digits. This speaks to the difficulty the households had to ensure and the potential benefits of affordable prices in the coming months.
The current restrictions, which are not in the spirit of regional agricultural development, present similar pressures in Namibia.
Lifting the ban does not mean these countries have given up on their domestic production efforts. They will keep focusing on such efforts while easing near-term pressures on consumers. Gaolathe noted that: “More effective measures could include directly subsidising vegetable farmers by establishing a dedicated fund for them.”
Gaolathe also saw the need for research and development as central to boosting Botswana’s vegetable production. I fully support this view and would add that its production efforts will require collaboration and clear communication about production intentions, especially with South Africa, a major regional agricultural producer. South Africa will share technology and know-how to boost production in Botswana. The coordination could be at the organised agriculture level and government.
Our energy must be channelled towards growing Southern Africa’s agriculture and food security in a free trade area, the Southern African Customs Union.
Another matter to highlight is how important the Southern African Development Community is for South Africa’s agricultural exports. We enjoy tariff-free access to various regional countries, which supports South Africa’s agricultural growth. This growth has dwarfed that of neighbouring countries, partly contributing to the current discontent over trade.
South Africa exported $ 13,2 billion of agricultural products in 2023. About 40% of this is to the African continent, but these exports are concentrated in Southern Africa. Roughly 80 cents in every dollar of South Africa’s agricultural exports to Africa is from the Southern Africa region. With an economic value like this, we cannot discuss blocking trade from our neighbours. We must seek an understanding of their problems and work collaboratively to resolve them.
Beyond trade restrictions, the unrest in Mozambique is an example of such problems that the region should work to resolve speedily for the benefit of all. Wandile Sihlobo is an agricultural economist and author of A Country of Two Agricultures.
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