Mbalula dismisses claims he's lobbying for Justice Minister Thembi Simelani to step aside

JOHANNESBURG - African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula has dismissed claims that he’s lobbying for Justice Minister Thembi Simelane to step aside.

This surfaced during the ANC's national working committee (NWC) meeting on Monday.

The meeting also comes on the back of a report from News24 of glaring inconsistencies in her coffee shop loan agreement.

The ANC is yet to pronounce itself on the claims levelled against the minister. Simelane appeared before the party's integrity committee last week.

Simelane, who also appeared before Parliament, has consistently failed to produce a copy of the 2016 loan agreement with Gundo Wealth Solutions.

The claims levelled Simelane are likely to find their way to the ANC's NWC meeting as calls for her removal intensify across some pockets of the country.

A view claimed to have also been expressed by Mbalula even before the organisation deals with the matter might also be raised

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Mbalula is also accused of trying to get Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal executive committees disbanded.

But Mbalula has told Eyewitness News none of the claims levelled against him including of urging Simelane to step aside are true.

Simelane’s fate within the ANC is likely to be debated during the last weekend of the month when the party’s executive committee meets to discuss matters of organisational integrity.

Meanwhile, ActionSA will lay criminal charges against the Justice Minister and former Polokwane mayor on Tuesday.

The charges relate to the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act in connection with the dodgy loan of over half a million rand from Gundo Wealth Solutions that Simelane solicited during her tenure as mayor of Polokwane in 2016.

Gundo Wealth Solution is the same investment brokerage that unlawfully invested R349 million of the Polokwane Municipality’s funds into the now-collapsed VBS Mutual Bank.

ActionSA's member of Parliament, Malebo Kobe, said she will be joined by their Limpopo provincial chairperson, Victor Mothemela, to open criminal charges against Simelane at the Polokwane police station.

"New information that has surfaced suggests that there is probable backdating of the loan agreement to potentially conceal the transaction, which warrants a criminal investigation," said Kobe.