20100601
Reuters

South Africa's ruling ANC will take disciplinary action against one of its most prominent members, trade union boss Zwelinzima Vavi, who accused President Zuma of not taking a tough enough stance on corruption.

The African National Congress decided on Monday to discipline Vavi, who last week said the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which he leads, was concerned that senior ANC members were exploiting political connections to accumulate personal wealth.
COSATU is in a formal alliance with the ANC and Vavi is believed to be lining up a bid to head the party, which elects a new leader in two years' time.
The relationship between the ANC and its alliance partners, COSATU and the South African Communist Party, has soured in recent months, threatening to split the decades' old alliance that freed South Africa from white minority rule.
Disciplinary action against Vavi comes at a sensitive time for the ANC, just weeks after its youth leader Julius Malema was sanctioned for bringing the party into disrepute with a series of inflammatory outbursts.
Vavi also accused co-operative governance minister Sicelo Shiceka of lying in his CV, and communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda of running up unjustified hotel bills of half a million rand.
While the ANC has not yet confirmed how it will proceed with the disciplinary action, Vavi said the charges would not hold.

"These charges are laughable and not going to happen because I was speaking on behalf of the union and not in my individual capacity," Vavi told Reuters in a telephone interview on Tuesday.