For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.

Making headlines: Mbeki blasts ANC for wanting to 'protect' Ramaphosa, Mbalula says ANCYL will elect leader in June and, South Sudan president appoints own defence minister, breaching peace deal

Mbeki blasts ANC for wanting to 'protect' Ramaphosa

Former president Thabo Mbeki has suggested that the ANC used its majority in Parliament to vote against any investigations into the Phala Phala saga because it suspects that President Cyril Ramaphosa has done something wrong.

The comments are contained in an explosive 17-page letter, that Mbeki wrote to ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile where Mbeki added the ANC wanted to protect Ramaphosa "at all costs".

In a letter, which has become public domain, the former statesman said the ANC had to be honest with itself.

Mbeki also asked why the ANC in Parliament had blocked any investigation into the Phala Phala saga, which he likened to the "Nkandla matter" involving former president Jacob Zuma.

Former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo found that Ramaphosa had a case to answer regarding the break-in but the ANC used its majority in Parliament to block an inquiry into the saga.

Mbalula says ANCYL will elect leader in June

After decades of struggle to elect a leader, the African National Congress Youth League will hold its national conference in June.

ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula tabled the outcomes of ANC’s National Working Committee meeting where he urged all involved to work tirelessly towards ensuring that the ANCYL conference is a success.

The NWC decided that the National Youth Task Team be reconfigured “with individuals who can add impetus to the task of ensuring that a credible National Conference of the Youth League takes place within three months”.

The reconfigured NYTT will be led by committee members from all provinces.

South Sudan president appoints own defence minister, breaching peace deal

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has appointed a member of his own party as defence minister, according to a decree read on state media, breaching a peace deal in which the role should be selected by the party of opposition leader Riek Machar.

Kiir fired defence minister Angelina Teny, who is also First Vice President Machar's wife, along with the interior minister this month, re-igniting long-standing disagreements over how the two war veterans share power.

Kiir and Machar's forces signed a peace agreement in 2018 that ended five years of civil war that killed 400 000 people and triggered Africa's biggest refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Implementation of the deal has been slow, and bouts of fighting have continued to kill and displace large numbers of civilians.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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