Mabuyane hunts for missing Ngcukayitobi hours before electoral court showdown

Eastern Cape ANC chair Oscar Mabuyane has raised concerns over the whereabouts and availability of provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi as the party braces for a crucial court battle with the IEC on Tuesday.

The message, which the Sunday Times has seen, came as provincial leaders were expected to finalise preparations for a PEC meeting including the agenda, reports and attendance, amid mounting pressure over the ANC’s election-list debacle.

“I have been trying to get hold of the provincial secretary,” Mabuyane told PEC members, adding that no agenda or reports had been processed by provincial officials or the provincial working committee.

He said the provincial list committee had also not had its meeting confirmed by the provincial secretary.

Mabuyane asked PEC members to indicate whether they would attend, saying the meeting could be rescheduled to avoid unnecessary inconvenience if attendance was likely to be poor.

But provincial ANC spokesperson Yanga Zicina rejected any suggestion that Ngcukayitobi had disappeared or abandoned his duties.

“He is not awol. The provincial secretary is at Calata House,” Zicina said, referring to the party’s provincial headquarters.

Zicina said the PEC meeting did not sit because several members had sent apologies and were unable to attend. He added that preparations for organisational meetings are ordinarily handled jointly by the provincial chair and secretary before being processed by officials.

The tension comes as the ANC in the Eastern Cape confronts the fallout from a potentially devastating failure to submit candidate lists in key municipalities before the IEC’s August 28 deadline.

A report by ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, previously revealed by the Sunday Times, places much of the blame on Ngcukayitobi.

According to the document, the provincial secretary submitted the Eastern Cape’s final candidate list to the party’s operations centre just 29 minutes before the deadline.

Mbalula identifies the late submission as a key reason the Eastern Cape was among the provinces worst affected by the registration crisis.

The report also raises suspicions that Ngcukayitobi may have altered the provincial list “unlawfully and without mandate”, including removing and adding names that had not been sanctioned by the ANC’s national executive committee.

Ngcukayitobi has pushed back. In a letter dated August 31, he demanded a detailed account from Mbalula’s office of the candidates submitted to the IEC and whether nomination procedures had been properly followed.