Africa-Press – South-Africa. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says the party was never informed about an alleged assassination attempt on Deputy President Paul Mashatile until the story surfaced in media reports on Sunday.
According to reports, Mashatile’s car was shot at several times while he was being driven from an ANC national executive committee meeting in Johannesburg on March 30.
Speaking to eNCA on Wednesday, Mbalula said neither Mashatile nor the government informed the party about the alleged shooting incident.
“As the ANC, we are yet to release a comprehensive response to this situation. We call it a situation because it’s not clearly defined. As the ANC we were not aware of it until the reports surfaced in the media on Sunday,” Mbalula said.
“We were taken aback by these reports because neither the deputy president nor anyone in government informed the ANC about this situation.”
Some people had questioned the veracity of the story given the presidency’s silence on the matter. Some ANC leaders, including treasurer-general Gwen Ramokgopa and the ANC Northern Cape chairperson, have cast doubt on the claims, labelling them as “fake news”.
Mashatile’s spokesperson, Keith Khoza, pushed back against those suggesting the incident was staged. “We are not fabricating anything,” Khoza said. “It is unfortunate that people would downplay such a serious matter.”
Mbalula said it was concerning that some people wanted to define the situation in a particular way “because we don’t know where this happened, how it happened, except from the reports, even from the deputy president himself… Many things get reported, especially in tabloid media. We must be wary of the work of agent provocateurs seeking to define situations and report them as truths.”
Police have confirmed a high-level investigation team has been assigned to look into the alleged shooting incident.
“We leave it in the capable hands of the police,” Mbalula said. “We engaged the minister of police [Senzo Mchunu] immediately, who informed Luthuli House that the commissioner of police is seized with the matter. He will report on the matter in both the short and long term in terms of the investigation. We leave it there.”
He said the party is yet to receive a report from Mashatile.
“We’re looking forward to getting a comprehensive report from the deputy president’s office, as well as being personally briefed by him because it looks like it’s something that happened some time ago. It is not something that the ANC was made aware of in time except from the media reports.”
He cautioned people against jumping to conclusions: “In this particular instance you don’t just jump into the truth about these matters because many things get to be said. Some reports are fake news, some are untruthful, and some are intended to sow divisions within the ANC itself.
“The ANC, over time, has suffered because of unprocessed reports about its leaders and individuals.”
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