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The African Transformation Movement has labelled three burglaries at its Mthatha head office as acts of “intimidation”.
National spokesperson, Zama Ntshona, said their offices were broken into three nights in a row.
He said it seemed like acts of “intimidation and information seeking”, saying critical documents, six laptops, and hard drives were stolen.
ATM has two seats in Parliament, and Ntshona suspects that their recent media statements challenging President Cyril Ramaphosa’s leadership may have triggered the incidents.
Over the past week, the party has called on the Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to step down over the NSFAS scandal and has written on the Rand Manipulation and on the Phala Phala case.
“These burglaries happened after 10 o’clock each night and they succeed these media statements. It does not make sense that a common thief would go three times in quick succession day after the other.”
Ntshona said the first two nights the burglars disabled the electric fence and hacked into the alarm system.
He said on Wednesday they deployed security personnel who reported seeing three heavily armed men who broke a window to gain access through a backroom.
“We categorically reject attempts to intimidate and bully us through these weak tactics," he said.
Ntshona said there were other electrical appliances in the office they could have taken if this was a normal burglary.
“We remain unshaken, and we will persist in being South Africa’s unwavering voice.”
The party has opened a case at the Mthatha Police Station, has reinstalled the electric fence, fixed blind spots on the alarm system, and has armed guards at their HQ.
