The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) president Mike Shingange described ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Bhekinkosi Mtolo’s utterances as “anti-workers”.
Shingange said the same Mtolo insulted workers in eThekwini when he told the municipal manager “to fire the dogs”, referring to the municipal workers.
“This behaviour may be directed at Nehawu today, but we know for a fact that up until the union had a political school, the utterances of Mtolo aimed at the municipal workers’ union to mobilise communities against workers belonging to the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu).
“It is unfortunately unbelievable that out of all the unions that exist, that represent workers in the public service and in local government, he (Mtolo) is supposed to be a leader of the alliance,” the union president said.
Shingange said it was not surprising that Mtolo would insult workers, as the party (ANC) leader President Cyril Ramaphosa had called workers “iphukuphuku” (a bunch of idiots) in an ANC January 8 Statement held in Kimberly two years ago.
“We do think this is a conceptious relationship that perhaps runs through the ANC that when they say the public servants, they don’t see well-thinking people. We don’t think that the public is fooled by that, because Mtolo might think the public is stupid or he himself is stupid not to know the reasons why the ambulances don’t arrive in time was that in fact there were no ambulances.”
He said Mtolo forgot that during the height of Covid-19, the same members he was insulting were the ones in the forefront saving the lives of South Africans while he was at home hiding.
Meanwhile, KZN Nehawu provincial secretary Ayanda Zulu said the union in the province was enraged by the “malicious and savage slander” by Mtolo, which was directed against the union.
“We are reminded of the words of Bertolt Brecht that ‘the worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud… The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute’.”
Zulu said the quote succinctly described Mtolo, whom he said was “a political illiterate, a political courtesan and an imbecile who didn’t know the role of Nehawu members in providing quality public services to the people”.
“He (Mtolo) doesn’t have an appreciation of the challenges confronting our members and the working class as a result of the implementation of neo-liberal polices by the then ANC-led government and now the Government of National Unity,” Zulu said.
“It’s unfortunate that the ANC in KZN finds itself led by a political moron like Mtolo, who has become a loose cannon at the detriment of the movement. This man represents the highest deterioration of leadership calibre of the ANC in the province. It’s disheartening that the ANC is led by a demented and a lazy thinking leader in the form of Bheki Mtolo.
“We call upon the ANC to really analyse his statement and what he implies about the ANC in government to the public to the point that he believes that GNU would do better than the ANC, in responding to the failures of the ANC in the last 30 years of the democratic breakthrough.
“This analysis will help the ANC to make a determination whether Mtolo is working for the ANC or against the ANC using his strategic position, because in our view he is working to the detriment of the ANC and the Congress movement as a whole,” the provincial secretary said.
Speaking in his hometown of Kokstad over the weekend, Mtolo accused Nehawu of pretending to hate white people, while selling out farmworkers to white farmers.
He alleged that the union inspector took a bribe in a form of a sheep in exchange for him to not expose the farmers on their failure to pay workers their minimum wages.
Zulu said as a union, they had been observing Mtolo’s erratic behaviour which had been devoid of Congress politics.
“This behaviour which has a semblance of lunacy has costed the ANC in the province, from his outbursts of continuously insulting workers even to the extent of casting aspersions on the (Zulu) monarch.
“We are not shocked nor surprised though, as Mtolo is said to have a record of mental illness. We wonder if he has not relapsed as his behaviour is that of a person that is not mentally stable (uhlanya)?
“We wish to remind Mtolo that it will be our members who will be attending to him when his mental illness worsens. Moreover, the ANC will be needing the same Nehawu members in two years’ time for the local government elections, who he is currently dishing out in favour of GNU today,” Zulu added.
The Star