Numsa: general secretary Irvin Jim, suspended, calls on his opponents to justify themselves
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Business Day (South Africa)
The general secretary of South African metalworkers' union Numsa, Irvin Jim, "suspended" by regional leaders, wrote to them on 5 November demanding they justify their own membership of the union. The two camps accuse each other of violating the statutes and of mismanagement, after an October central committee meeting that stripped the national leaders of their powers, according to Business Day.
Irvin Jim, whose suspension as general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) is contested, has written to the regional leaders behind the suspension asking them to justify in writing, before 6pm on Saturday 7 November, why their membership of the union should not be terminated, Business Day reports. The letter is dated 5 November.
Jim states in it that the coordination team set up by these regional leaders has no authority to speak on behalf of Numsa, on the grounds that no valid central committee met on 23 October and that the resolutions from that meeting are therefore void. He invites his addressees to ignore the letter from Silumko Nondwangu and Karl Cloete, members of that team, failing which the union's national executive committee will examine whether they remain within the organisation.
The regional leaders maintain on the contrary that the central committee of 23 October was properly constituted and that its decisions remain valid, no court having annulled them. Their special executive committee, meeting on 2 November, had suspended the national officials, including Jim and president Andrew Chirwa, for failing in their duties, damaging the union's reputation and violating the statutes. In October, their central committee had already stripped the national officials of their powers and replaced them with a coordination team.
This internal crisis at Numsa comes on top of a tense political climate in South Africa, where the ANC suffered a heavy defeat in the municipal elections, a score the party's general secretary, Fikile Mbalula, called catastrophic on 7 November.
