Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) treasurer Magdalene Moonsamy has resigned to focus on her legal practice, the party said on Monday.

Party leader Julius Malema said Moonsamy would be replaced by a member of the central command team and MP Leigh-Ann Mathys.

“Commissar Moonsamy resigned. She says she is overly committed as she has just started her own legal practice. She remains a member of the central command team. Commissar Mathys has been appointed in her place,” Malema told reporters in Johannesburg following the party’s central command team meeting.

Furthermore, provincial structures in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape would be dissolved.

Malema said the EFF structures in the two provinces were “weak” and needed to be strengthened.

“The CCT [Central Command Team] resolved that the provincial and regional structures be dissolved and replaced with interim structures. Some councils in these provinces do not have EFF councillors,” he said.

“The elections are over, we need to train them, send them back to the branches and communities so that they can understand what it means to be an activist. If we have a weak KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, then we must forget about strong EFF in those areas.”

Malema said EFF councillors who received less than 100 votes in their wards after the local polls would be replaced by activists “who worked hard and garnered support and more votes”. The party was not the ANC, and would not accept mediocrity, he said.

“We are not a charity organisation or an employment agency. We are not a party built on friendship…all of us have to comply with decisions of the EFF. If we do not change the modus operandi, we would be like the ANC.”