The group spokesperson, Monnapule Ntamo, says the appeals court has accepted their court bid to appeal the 2018 Free State High Court’s decision to dismiss their bid - which was handed down with a cost order against them. He says it’s been six months of waiting for a court date, where issues around the constitutionality of the Branch General Meetings would be attended to at a higher court.

Ntamo was speaking to OFM News on the sidelines of a march where a large contingent of ANC members marched to Free State Premier Sisi Ntombela’s office at OR Tambo House, and subsequently ended at the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.

In 2018, Advocate Dali Mpofu, who represented the group, argued that the Branch General Meetings were illegally constituted because those who attended the Ilanga Estate conference were those from the nullified 2017 Nasrec delegation which emanated from the Parys conference. 

Whilst delivering a judgment in the Bloemfontein High Court, Judge Fouché Jordaan said he did not believe the applicants had a solid case against the PEC and believed that they made the court bid to score political points within their faction.

Ntamo told OFM News that Jordaan’s statements were malicious and indicative of his misunderstanding of the matter. 

“We are not satisfied with the judgment because we feel that the judge has miscalculated the facts. However, we still stand firm that the current PEC is illegal and our fight still goes on. We are going to regroup quickly and check what our next step will be, but we’re not going to leave it lying down,” Ntamo said.

Ntamo lamented Jordaan’s statements that the disgruntled group used the court case to further their political motives, calling his statements malicious. Ntamo said while the group intends to continue fighting the party, the fight is against the current PEC and not the party itself.

OFM News