Mbalula, ANC given 10 days to open its books on Eastern Cape branches - IOL
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula and the party have been ordered to hand over Eastern Cape membership data and branch attendance records after members challenged the integrity of meetings.
The ANC has been ordered to hand over electronic membership data and branch attendance records from the Eastern Cape after party members challenged the integrity of branch meetings held ahead of an interdicted provincial elective conference.
The KuGompo High Court directed the African National Congress and its Secretary-General, Fikile Mbalula, to provide the records within 10 court days.
The order, handed down by Judge Avinash Govindjee on Wednesday, follows an application by disgruntled ANC members led by Lwazi Rotya, who sought what they described as the party’s “raw data”.
The records cover electronic membership-system results and branch attendance registers for 2025 and 2026 across the Eastern Cape.
The court directed that the information be submitted electronically through secure means determined by the registrar.
The records will not form part of the open court file and will remain confidential, accessible only to the court and the applicants’ legal representatives.
The ANC was also ordered to pay the applicants’ legal costs on a punitive Scale B basis.
The demand for the records arose after the applicants questioned the conduct of Branch General Meetings convened ahead of the provincial elective conference, which was later interdicted.
The applicants alleged that the branch processes were marred by manipulation, identity-document harvesting and fraudulent activity.
Those allegations formed part of the dispute over the integrity of the meetings and the underlying membership records.
The applicants’ legal representative, Sinawo Mkhangela, welcomed the ruling, saying the disclosure of the attendance registers represented progress towards resolving the pending application.
“It’s about the attendance registers that you must be given of the branches 2025, 2026. So, I think now we’re moving closer to finalising that pending application,” Mkhangela said.
He said the punitive costs order reflected the court’s displeasure with the conduct that prompted the application.
