ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli and the party’s secretary-general (SG), Fikile Mbalula, locked horns this week during a national working committee meeting over what is believed to be a disagreement over Luthuli House encroaching on regional conferences.
Ntuli is said to have taken issue with how the party’s national officials, dubbed the “top seven”, were running regional conferences instead of focusing on relevant issues that require more of their attention.
Ntuli’s criticism of the officials was seen to be directed mostly at Mbalula, who had recently addressed regional conferences in the Eastern Cape’s OR Tambo and Chris Hani districts. ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe had also attended the OR Tambo conference.
The overly involved nature of senior ANC and Luthuli House officials’ relationships with the regional conferences raised the ire of many and forced the party to establish an investigative team led by national executive committee (NEC) member Noxolo Kiviet. The team’s brief was to probe allegations of vote rigging and related irregularities at three Limpopo regional conferences — in Vhembe, Norman Mashabane and Peter Mokaba — that sat in May.
Ntuli is believed to have told the national working committee (NWC) meeting this week that the structure, tasked with the day-to-day running of the ANC, seems to have lost focus and its weight on relevant issues.
But Mbalula is said not to have taken this lying down and is said to have received support from party president Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mbalula and Ntuli have had a fraught relationship since he went up against Mbalula during the 2022 elective conference of the ANC.
Insiders privy to the meeting claim Ntuli was one of the NWC members who have consistently called for the DA’s head after it decided to reject the budget earlier in 2025.
Ntuli leads a parliamentary caucus which at the height of the budget impasse said the DA had defined itself out of the GNU and demanded its removal.
At least three party leaders who spoke to the Sunday Times said Ntuli questioned the weight of the NWC, calling it out for having lost steam.
“He said the NWC was like a hopeless structure. He told the NWC that it had become a talk shop and that no recommendations were made to the NEC. He told the NWC that the structure had no direction,” one insider said.
One NWC member said they agreed with Ntuli, arguing that the NWC had not produced any substantive reports for the NEC to adopt. They said the NWC was failing in its duty to provide direction to the NEC.
Provinces don’t get time to address officials because officials are busy addressing these conferences, but we all know he meant Mbalula. He told them week after week, we have meetings that don’t do anything. If not that, they get postponed — and if they don’t get postponed, they don’t achieve anything
— Insider
“We don’t have a single report which will guide the NEC. We agreed that the officials would finalise a report on this reset of the GNU, but that report had not landed. We understood that we would have a report on the budget process, but that report is non-existent. We do not have a report until now on the regional conferences in Limpopo, which need to be investigated over their legality; that report has not landed. We are flying blind,” said the insider.
“I doubt that we will receive any of these reports on July 14, when the NWC meets before the NEC. We are being prepared to fail. We will arrive at the NEC having not been prepared on how to guide the NEC,” they said.
Insiders said Ntuli had asked why officials were addressing regional conferences when provincial executive committees could do so. They said it was unprecedented for regional conferences to be a “playground” for officials sidelining provincial officials.
“Provinces don’t get time to address officials because officials are busy addressing these conferences, but we all know he meant Mbalula. He told them week after week, we have meetings that don’t do anything. If not that, they get postponed — and if they don’t get postponed, they don’t achieve anything,” the second insider said.
Mbalula is said to have defended himself with the aid of the president, arguing that the ANC officials had been invited to the meetings. Insiders said Mbalula told the NWC that the officials did not attend all regional conferences.
“He said officials needed to be in touch with the members and that in the climate of the GNU, the ANC leaders need to communicate more diligently with their members. Mbaks was pissed. He addressed Mdu directly,” the insider said.
“There is no brief why officials should attend those conferences, and it has got us on issues of personality. It’s also on a membership system that is questionable and unknown to the organisation. By having officials in those conferences we are endorsing these conferences, which must be investigated,” the third insider said.
“His attitude towards Mdumiseni [Ntuli] has nothing to do with content. There is an unending negative attitude that the SG [secretary-general] has towards Mdu. Even when Mdu is raising valuable issues, Mbalula says we must now undermine provinces to an extent that he will go to a conference attended by [party chairperson Gwede] Mantashe to close it. What do you call that?
“He puts people who ordinarily are not supposed to be there, like Thandi Moraka from Limpopo, intervening in Limpopo issues. He deploys NEC members to facilitate nominations and elections like what Njabulo Nzuza did. It’s wrong,” the insider said.
Additional reporting by Kgothatso Madisa
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