'Ja baas' country is gone, ANC tells AfriForum amid Mbalula prosecution row - IOL

The ANC has branded AfriForum a racist organisation and questioned whether it was “potentially corrupt” that the lobby group, rather than the NPA, announced that Fikile Mbalula would be prosecuted for allegedly calling a school principal a child rapist.

Mbalula, the ANC's secretary-general, faces a charge of crimen injuria over remarks he made about former Bergview College principal Jaco Pieterse in April last year.

The remarks followed claims that a seven-year-old girl had been raped at the school in Matatiele, Eastern Cape, in 2024.

The NPA declined to prosecute anyone over the alleged rape in May last year, saying medical practitioners and forensic social workers who examined and interviewed the child had found no evidence of rape or sexual assault.

In a statement, the ANC said neither it nor Mbalula had been told of any decision to prosecute by the police or the NPA.

"It is peculiar, irregular and potentially corrupt that a special interest political outfit, AfriForum, is the first conveyor of a decision by an institution of State charged with independently managing aspects of our criminal justice system," ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu said.

"The blinding obsession with Mbalula that this special interest political formation has long held is bordering on harassment and targeted political activity through the abuse of State institutions.

"AfriForum longs for a country where black people are expected to bow their heads and answer 'ja baas'.

"That country is gone, and the ANC will never allow it to return."

“Ja baas” is Afrikaans for “yes, boss” or “yes, master”.

It became associated with the subservient role imposed on Black people under white rule and apartheid, when “baas” was used by Black workers to address white employers, landowners and other figures of authority.

Over time, “ja baas” came to symbolise the expectation that Black people should obey white authority without question.

The ANC said Mbalula had been delivering the party's own official statement on the national executive committee's discussions about gender-based violence and femicide, and that the statement named no one as a suspect.

It said if anyone had to answer for the statement, it was the ANC.

The party said the statement came after the police minister and SAPS had publicly identified a suspect, and that it had acknowledged the correction when the minister later admitted the identification was wrong.

The ANC said independent prosecutors had previously considered the complaint against Mbalula and declined to prosecute, and that the matter was revived following representations from AfriForum.

AfriForum's private prosecution unit, headed by Adv Gerrie Nel, announced on Monday that Gauteng director of public prosecutions Andrew Chauke had agreed to prosecute Mbalula.

The decision followed representations the unit made to Chauke on August 13, arguing that the earlier decision not to prosecute was irrational.

NPA spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago confirmed the decision last week.

AfriForum said Pieterse had never been a suspect, and that Mbalula had called him an animal and accused the lobby group of defending one.

The unit said it had argued that Mbalula's words could reasonably be understood to refer to Pieterse even though he had not named him.

Pieterse, backed by the unit, also laid complaints against EFF leader Julius Malema and Eastern Cape education MEC Fundile Gade.

The NPA decided in August to prosecute Malema on the same charge.

The ANC said Mbalula would deal with the matter through the courts.

It is not the first time AfriForum has gone after Mbalula.

It is not the first time AfriForum has pursued Mbalula. The lobby group has for years called for him to be prosecuted over his family's R680,000 Dubai holiday in 2016, when he was sports minister. The NPA decided in 2023 not to prosecute in that matter.