Premier’s liaison officer in sticky situation
When he is not doing the KZN premier’s business, Kwazi Mshengu is backing Sihle Zikalala, Senzo Mchunu’s rival.
|||Durban - Caught between a rock and a hard place – that’s the awkward and potentially career limiting position that Premier Senzo Mchunu’s parliamentary liaison officer, Kwazi Mshengu, has found himself in.
When he is not doing the premier’s business as one of about nine support staff, Mshengu is the ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal’s deputy chairman. As such, he is backing Sihle Zikalala, the league’s preferred candidate – and Mchunu’s rival – at this weekend’s contest for election as ANC provincial chairman.
A tricky state of affairs, which the ANCYL tackled at a Tuesday press conference when it took the unusual step of issuing a warning to the premier not to sack Mshengu.
The warning could be interpreted as fear of a possible backlash against one of their own should provincial secretary Zikalala’s bid fail and Mchunu is re-elected.
ANCYL KZN Secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo said the Mchunu-Mshengu employer-employee relationship ought not to be an issue in the light of the elective conference.
“We don’t expect anything out of this process to happen to our deputy chairman. If anything was to happen, if I can make an example, that the deputy chairman gets fired for his political views, then we will take the premier to task. We are clear that we will take him to task,” the firebrand Sabelo said.
He insisted that the weekend conference had nothing to do with Mshengu’s employment contract.
“He is a member of the ANC. He is not a member of the premier. He is entitled to hold a view, but is bound by the view of the ANCYL,” Sabelo said.
Sabelo also took a swipe at Mchunu’s spokesman, Sibusiso Magwaza, who earlier this week, was quoted as accusing the ANCYL of spreading lies against his boss.
In a press statement punctuated with the successes of Mchunu, Magwaza said the premier’s detractors were labelling him as “media shy”.
But Sabelo said Magwaza should rather enter mainstream politics if he wanted to speak on ANC matters.
Sabelo added that Magwaza should stick to his job of promoting government activities.
Magwaza declined to comment, saying he was neither a politician nor wished to enter politics.
Daily News
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