Brown Mogotsi has permanently changed how the public views the annual ANC January 8 celebrations. “Who is the sponsor [because] the ANC blesser [Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala] is in jail?” On ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s Facebook page yesterday morning, one of the followers asked, after seeing the digital poster, “Since it will be held in his home province of North West, will Brown Mogotsi still ask Cat Matlala for sponsorship?” Ever since KwaZulu-Natal police commissionerLt-Gen “Lucky” Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s explosive July 6 press conference, it has been almost impossible to discuss the ANC’s annual celebrations without reference to the attempted murder case involving alleged underworld figure Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and to Brown Mogotsi, whom Matlala now describes as a con man. Among other revelations on July 6, Mkhwanazi stated that now-on-leave police minister Senzo Mchunu controversially ordered the disbandment of the political killings task team around the same time that Mogotsi — an associate of the minister — was soliciting money from Matlala to pay for food, flights and accommodation for “delegates” attending last year’s edition of the event in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.
Subsequent evidence presented to the Madlanga commission by the police — and confirmed by Matlala himself at the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating issues raised by Mkhwanazi — suggests that the alleged crime boss paid between R150,000 and R200,000 to Mogotsi in return for what he believed would be political protection by the minister. That Mogotsi’s scheme, which Mchunu has strenuously denied knowledge of, directly involved January 8 is a major blow to a troubled ANC that is desperately trying to convince a sceptical electorate it is currently on a long march to “renewal”. For much of the past five decades, the former national liberation movement has used the occasion of its birthday to outline the organisation’s programme for the year and position itself as “the leader of society”.
The first ever January 8 statement was issued in exile in 1972 to mark the party’s 60th anniversary. The tradition was to be revived in 1979, which the ANC had dubbed “The Year of the Spear”, to coincide with the escalation of the armed struggle within the borders of apartheid South Africa.
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