Africa-Press – South-Africa. The former leader of the DA in the Eastern Cape, Nqaba Bhanga, has been given 48 hours by the party to explain why he must not be suspended.
This comes after Bhanga, on Saturday, accused the party’s chairperson of the federal council, Helen Zille, of being “racist”.
Bhanga posted these claims on his Facebook page. The post read: “Helen Zille is the most racist person she [has] got of a file of all back people.
“Yesterday I learnt how she got information to try to destroy the ANC. I’m hurt to know that you were working with the ANC against me (sic).”
In a statement on Sunday, the party’s provincial leader Andrew Whitfield, said the DA in the Eastern Cape had “unanimously resolved to serve DA member Nqaba Bhanga with a notice of intention to suspend him from all party activities pending the outcome of an investigation into claims of bringing the party in disrepute, among other transgressions of the DA’s standards of conduct for its members.
“The intention to suspend Nqaba Bhanga follows after he publicly labeled another DA member, Helen Zille, a ‘racist’ and posted unfounded allegations against her on social media,” reads the statement.
Whitfield, who said the DA in the province “is deeply disappointed” in Bhanga’s conduct, said Bhanga had been given 48 hours to respond and that his case had been referred to the DA’s Federal Legal Commission for investigation.
News24 has also seen communication by Whitfield addressed to all structures of the DA in the Eastern Cape on Sunday, informing them of the intention to suspend Bhanga
In the letter, Whitfield said it was a “difficult time for all of us” and urged DA members in the province to “remain calm until the matter has been dealt with.” He also requested that the matter not be discussed on social media and that all media enquiries be referred to him as the spokesperson on the issue.
Witfield wrote:
In an interview with the Herald on Saturday night, Bhanga claimed that Zille was investigating him and other black leaders.
He claimed that the DA was “judging him” and investigating him for a relationship he has with an ex-Nelson Mandela Bay official. He also alleged that he was being investigated for his house in Walmer, Gqeberha, which allegedly cost R6 million.
“I have a very big house in Walmer, almost like Nkandla, and white people are jealous that I have such a big house as a black man, and that’s why I’m being investigated,” claimed Bhanga to the Herald.
In the letter Whitfield wrote to the structures of the DA in the Eastern Cape, he said the party took a “firm stance on members of our party who contravene Section 2.5 of the Federal Constitution in respect of the code of conduct of members.
“The matter is now playing out publicly in the media and bringing the party into disrepute.”
Speaking to the Herald, Zille dismissed the allegations by Bhanga and claimed he must have been “drunk” when he wrote on his Facebook page.
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