‘We will engage with Comrade Mbalula’ – Ace Magashule after Twitter spat

Ace Magashule. Picture: Gallo Images/Sunday Times/Alon Skuy

• ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule responded to a Twitter tirade by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula.
• He said he would be willing to engage Mbalula within ANC structures.
• He said it was regrettable that Mbalula made his comments public as opposed to raising it internally.

Embattled ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule says he is open to discussions with his ANC colleague and Transport Minister, Fikile Mbalula.

“Members of the ANC, including Comrade Mbalula, might have issues. We are pleading with them to raise matters internally. All of us must be happy that way because that’s how the ANC cooperates, that’s how the ANC works, we raise matters internally,” he told journalists on Tuesday.

He was speaking outside the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal headquarters in Durban, where he was intervening in a dispute with uMkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans (MKMVA), who said more had to be done to maintain the welfare of all liberation soldiers.

After saying he would be in KZN for “a few days” to engage on the MKMVA matter, Magashule said party issues needed to remain internal.

“Sometimes I feel I’m not happy. My role as secretary-general and a member of the NEC is to ensure ordinary members… raise matters internally.”

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He said he was still happy to engage Mbalula.

“We will engage with Comrade Mbalula; he is a member of the NWC, so we will engage. I can’t engage in public as we try to understand what the issues are.”

News24 reported that a war of words erupted on social media between Mbalula and MKMVA president Kebby Maphatsoe, amid a march by the veterans’ organisation to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House as well as the office of Gauteng Premier David Makhura.

Mbalula then tweeted that Maphatsoe ran away from ANC military camps, alleging that he had lost his hand due to cowardice.

Maphatsoe said Mbalula’s “arrogance is unbearable”.

In a statement, the MK vets said the march would be held to highlight the plight of the poor, corruption, forgotten freedom fighters, a demand for the arrest of apartheid killers and for the arrest of Mbalula for the damaged railway network, among other things.