The ANC in the Free State has invited Mbeki to address the party on unity and renewal of the organisation, says ANC’s provincial spokesperson, Oupa Khoabane. Mbeki will be interacting with different sectors of society during his three-day visit.

The reason the National Executive Committee established an Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) is to revive and organise the structures through a renewal process. Khoabane also explained that the decision was premised on the long history of disbandment and dissolutions of the provincial committee as a result of malfeasance in electing the structure. Mbeki, in his three-day visit, will be interacting with different sectors of society.

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Mbeki’s address about unity comes on the heels of the ANC’s Interim Regional Committee (IRC) taking a decision to suspend the Mangaung Metro Municipality’s speaker, Stefani Lockman, following the allegations about her defying the order of the party not to allow a sitting which saw the former Acting City Manager Sello More’s removal from office. 

In addition, the IRC's coordinator, Sabelo Pitso, stated the former member of the mayoral committee (MMC), Patrick Monyakoane, should be removed from the list of the Independent Electoral Committee (IEC), as he was part of a group of ANC members which removed More as the acting manager.

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However, Lockman chaired a council meeting despite being suspended by the ANC’s lower structure, the IRC. Lockman was well within her rights to chair the meeting as the ANC’s upper structure, the IPC, still had to receive the report from the IRC, and discuss it before taking a decision.

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