By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
African National Congress (ANC) stalwart Tony Yengeni on Wednesday won his appeal against his disqualification from standing for a position in the party’s national executive committee (NEC).
Yengeni was served with a letter last week disqualifying him from contesting the National Executive Committee (NEC) due to his fraud conviction.
The elective committee chairperson, Kgalema Motlanthe, found that his criminal record did not exist, having being expunged in terms of the law.
“We therefore wish to confirm that you are no longer disqualified from being a candidate for the NEC position during the 55th national conference of the ANC to take place on 16-20 December 2022,” said Motlantle in a letter.
In 2003, Yengeni was sentenced to four years imprisonment after being found guilty of defrauding Parliament when he did not disclose a 47% discount he received for a Mercedes Benz car in 1998.
The discount was organised by a representative of Daimler-Benz Aerospace – one of the bidders of the controversial multibillion-rand arms deal. Yengeni was overseeing the deal at the time as chairperson of Parliament’s joint standing committee on defence.
Under the ANC electoral committee rules, members who have been convicted of crimes with a sentence longer than six months cannot stand for a leadership position. Yengeni appealed the decision made against him, saying that his criminal record was expunged by the justice department 10 years after his release from prison.
Yengeni did not make it to the list of 200 people nominated to serve on the 86-member national executive committee. He would now have to be nominated from the floor during the conference this weekend, and backed by at least 25% of the voting delegates for his name to appear on the ballot.