Whilst addressing residents and officials during the controversial multimillion Integrated Public Transport Network (IPTN) Hauweng project on Friday in Bloemfontein, Minister Mbalula said these councillors were undermining the efforts of the party.

His comments come after ANC councillors in the metro allegedly worked with opposition parties to oust council whip, Vumile Nikelo, through a motion of confidence.

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Mbalula also used demeaning descriptions to describe the ANC councillors in the Metro.

“We have put people in positions with a (party mandate) but now they do as they please. We also gave them powers as a council but they do as they like and ignore what the council has asked them to do. The votes are gone in Gauteng, everywhere else, but not in Mangaung, because we fought hard and we managed to win the vote margin (over other parties). Now they are urinating on these votes. Those I even saw when I was campaigning, now they're busy on the streets, urinating on the (work of the ANC). I was here (in Bloemfontein), Botshabelo and everywhere else, pleading with people to vote for the ANC,” Mbalula says.

In June this year, Mbalalu also announced a forensic investigation into the alleged mismanagement and looting of millions of rands meant for Mangaung’s IPTN Hauweng project. Mbalula said that a forensic report followed stringent allegations of massive fraud and corruption in the project.

It is alleged that ten buses were procured through a lease contract and facilitation process that involved a middleman who scored a facilitation fee of about R20 million. It’s further alleged that the metro has missed at least six deadlines in phase 1 to complete the IPTN project, after numerous warnings by the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport.

The project is said to have cost the ailing metro at least R2 billion since its commencement in 2016, with feasibility studies that are said to have started in 2011, including accruals that ran into millions of rands.

“We are giving R1,4 billion and R900 million to the IPTN project, aimed at fixing roads. The fixing of the roads does not have to wait for the visit of the president. Roads must always be fixed," Mbalula previously said.

ALSO READ: Mangaung IPTN back in spotlight as minister returns

Earlier this month, the Mangaung ANC’s Interim Regional Committee (IRC) threatened to approach the highest ANC structure, the National Executive Committee (NEC), about the Interim Provincial Committee's (IPC) alleged lack of action to discipline councillors.

According to the ANC Mangaung IRC spokesperson, Ncamile Nxangisa, the party’s lower structure has since requested the intervention of the IPC on the expulsion of eight members who were flagged for their possible role in colluding with the opposition to defy the work of the ANC. However, to date, nothing has happened in that regard.

Nxangisa said the party is deeply worried about the state of the metro, especially when incidents such as the aforementioned occurs. Those who the ANC seeks to expel, include council speaker Stefani Lockman-Naidoo and former Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Transport, Patrick Monyakoane. It also includes six others, who have been served with letters of intention to expel them from the ANC.

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The ANC council has long been tangled in factional battles with party members believed to be aligned to a party policy called the Radical Economic Transformation (RET), usually linked to the suspended ANC Secretary-General (SG) Ace Magashule, and those aligned to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Thuma Mina, at loggerheads with each other.

The ANC’s IPC spokesperson, Oupa Khoabane, has, however, previously rejected the notion that the ANC is one organisation with many groupings in the party.

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