MK must be the 'eyes and ears of the ANC' – Maphatsoe

12th June 2017 By: News24Wire

MK must be the 'eyes and ears of the ANC' – Maphatsoe

MKMVA leader Kebby Maphatsoe

The African National Congress's (ANC's) Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) wants the party to allow its members to guard both the party and the country's national key points.

This forms part of resolutions it reached at its three-day congress in Boksburg. New office bearers and national executive members were also elected, with Kebby Maphatsoe retaining his position as leader of the association.

He told journalists the conference's resolutions were mostly focused on security and radical economic transformation.

"In other countries when you go to the airport, you take out your belt and you take off [your] shoes. Here we are not doing it, it shows that we are not serious about our security," said Maphatsoe.

He said companies owned by former freedom fighters needed to be the ones watching over the republic, mostly because they have not only the expertise, but were also patriotic.

Maphatsoe said the association had made this decision in 2012, and wanted to take it back to the ANC’s national policy conference, which takes place in June, for the rest of the party to deliberate over the MKMVA's suggestion.

He said as far as the 105-year-old movement was concerned, it had already been infiltrated and needed its own former combatants to assist in identifying and neutralising the threat, even when posed by its NEC members.

"They were saying we are dreaming, we are lying but now they see its true, it's in the open now… this thing that they want is the regime change [and] the ANC out of power," said Maphatsoe.

Although he refused to name anyone in the ANC or any of the ANC’s alliance partners, he said the party had already been infiltrated.

"We must be able to identify and advise the ANC to say 'Hey, watch that person, he must not be elected in any senior positions because he is going to divide the organisation'," said Maphatsoe, who in some part was referring to the governing party’s upcoming national elective conference in December.

Its president, Jacob Zuma, is expected to step down and a new NEC and leaders will be elected. "We must be [the] eyes and ears of the ANC, so that when a person begins to behave in a different way in [what] he’s doing… we are able to identify it," he added.