Parallel African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) structures in the Buffalo City Metro are at loggerheads over the inclusion of President Cyril Ramaphosa in the programme for the mass funeral of the 21 teenagers who died in Enyobeni tavern on 26 June.

A group led by Ondela Sokomani, a well-known supporter of the ANC's Radical Economic Transformation faction, on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on Ramaphosa, questioning his role at the funeral, which is taking place on Wednesday. 

He is expected to deliver a speech at the service at the Scenery Park Sports Field from 09:00. 

The Eastern Cape government announced Ramaphosa would be joined by Premier Oscar Mabuyane and provincial and local government leaders.  

But Sokomani, a critic of both Ramaphosa and Mabuyane, said on Tuesday: "We are of the view that the president's visit to Scenery Park will not bring any fundamental change to the lives of the people of Scenery Park, neither will it have any fundamental impact on the weakened systems of governance that led to this tragedy."

"We are, in the main, questioning why is the president easy to come to a mass funeral when he is refusing to deal with [André] De Ruyter who is running down Eskom effectively. Under his leadership, there has been an erroneous payment of R5-billion to a service provider at Eskom and nothing has happened. That is not regarded as worthy of attention from his [Ramaphosa] level," he added.

In January 2020, the power utility initially refused to name the company it allegedly overpaid by R5-billion but later it issued a media statement denying there was ever an accounting error that saw an unnamed contractor mistakenly being overpaid by billions.

Sokomani also took aim at the power utility for load-shedding.

Eskom announced Stage 5 load-shedding will be implemented on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, with varying stages implemented for the rest of the week.

Since 2007, it had been implementing deliberate power cuts to save the national grid from total collapse.

Sokomani accused Ramaphosa of ignoring issues that affected the country, including the "crazy irrational hikes of fuel price". 

He was elected chairperson of the ANCYL for the WB Rubusana region [Buffalo City Metro] on 16 June.

The following day, another ANCYL structure elected Pedro Mzileni at Gonubie Hall.  

On Tuesday, his grouping issued a statement to counter Sokomani's remarks. 

The group's secretary, Khonaye Tilongo, said the ANCYL had noted the actions of certain members masquerading as leaders in the region.

"We highly condemn the use of factional battles and terrible pain for ulterior motives.

"Death is the most painful point that any parent or family could experience, and we urge all our members to volunteer their time and any available social capital and network they have to solicit sustainable support for these affected families beyond this moment, including attending the mass funeral scheduled for Wednesday, 6 July 2022 without using this platform to fight and gain factional momentum."

Tilongo said Ramaphosa, as ANC president, was welcome to attend and deliver his speech at the mass funeral. 

He added the ANCYL, in the WB Rubusana region, distanced itself from calls made by Sokomani. 

"Youth development should be at the centre of topics of engagement, not factional agendas. We commend the work that has been done so far by this leadership in soliciting widespread social partners to come together and coordinate efforts to ensure that these affected families receive dignified burials, social support, care, and rehabilitation," Tilongo said.

The 12 girls and nine boys, who will be buried on Wednesday, died during and after a party organised at the Scenery Park venue on 26 June.