The name of a withdrawn ward councillor candidate Betty Moore Maenetsa in Letaba sub-region appearing on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) ward councillor candidate list caused confusion.

Betty Moore Maenetsa who was elected unjustly as ward 1 councillor candidate whilst serving her party as a PR councillor left some of the political party’s members fuming which resulted into a meeting that led into a decision of Betty being forfeited as a ward councillor candidate. Following the decision taken Maenetsa agreed with the decision taken and later handed her withdrawal letter of being a ward councillor candidate to the upper body of the political party.

The organization went back to the drawing board and elected Masale Collen Mashao as ward 1 councillor candidate, following the campaigns that were held around ward 1 village Lenokwe -Khehlakoni. Members of the party in ward 1 received information that the name of Betty Moore Moore Maenetsa still appears on the IEC ward councillor’s list.

An urgent meeting was later called to address the issue, the Chairperson of ward 1 Mr Ngwako Kgatla revealed that they also wrote a letter to the upper body of the organization to intervene but the matter didn’t seem to be taken seriously And the response received from the upper body of the organization was that the IEC had already closed.

This was before the IEC announced that they’re giving all political parties two days (20-21 September) to rectify their mistakes even after the announcement the organization still failed to replace Betty Moore Maenetsa’s name with the name of Masale Collen Mashao on the IEC list. “The upper leadership instructed us to continue campaigning under the name of Collen Mashao of which we collectively as a branch worked very tirelessly day and night believing that Collen Mashao is the rightful candidate as we were assured by the leadership, Mashao abandoned his job as a builder which was his only source of income and sacrificed his time, efforts and resources to campaign for the local government elections.”

“Today the 13^th of October 2021 we as ward 1 have painfully learnt that the name of ward councillor candidate Collen Mashao is not appearing on the IEC list, meanwhile the list reveals Betty Maenetsa the ward 1 councillor candidate.”

“As ward 1 we feel like we have been betrayed and deceived by the upper structure of the EFF and those who are connected with Betty Maenetsa in the EFF Letaba sub-region as well in the provincial level.” Kgatla added.