Vavi, Dlamini not enemies
Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini on Tuesday said he and the union federation's general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi are not enemies.
Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini on Tuesday said he and the union federation's general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi are not enemies.
"Vavi is my general secretary and the general secretary of Cosatu, my colleague," Dlamini told SABC's Morning Live program.
"I have worked with him in that office for seven years now. There is nothing between us that we can point out to say is a problem and these are the differences. There is absolutely nothing which is personal between me and the general secretary."
The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), a Congress of SA Trade Unions affiliate, on Monday accused Dlamini of taking sides after Vavi admitted to having extra-marital sex with a married junior employee at Cosatu's headquarters.
The employee alleged Vavi raped her, but she later withdrew her sexual harassment grievance against him.
Numsa said comments by Dlamini had "contaminated" a planned meeting to discuss Vavi's fate.
"The reasons and motivation for the convening of the special CEC [central executive committee] on 14th August... [has] been contaminated and prejudged by the Cosatu president's public utterances," Numsa said.
The union said Dlamini had "determined" that Vavi had brought Cosatu into disrepute before the CEC received a report on the matter.
Dlamini told Morning Live on Tuesday he would not respond to Numsa's comments publicly.
"We having a special committee meeting tomorrow [Wednesday] where Numsa will be at liberty to raise the constitutional issues they are raising," he said.
Dlamini denied claims he was a "factionalist" and said he was working to unite Cosatu.
"If we were to go to school and write an exam about who is the biggest factionalist I would definitely fail that exam. I'm not capable of doing that," he said.
-Sapa