Kuli Roberts' appointment as the new councillor candidate for African Transformation Movement was met with mixed reactions, as her other employer Sunday World, decided to give her the boot. But the media personality made another startling revelation that this was all just a stunt.
In an interview on 702 with The Clement Manyathela’s “Hanging Out” crew, Kuli explained how everything unfolded. She claims that the party leader Mzwanele Manyi gave inaccurate fact about her running for councillor and that cost her big time as she lost her job at Sunday World as Lifestyle Editor.
She told the radio station that she did not sign up to be a councillor at ATM and that she would never enter politics in South Africa and compared it to Mexico.
“I never signed up to be a councillor for ATM. Manyi posted absolute lies, I was never standing up to be a councillor for ATM and that basically cost me my job...That hurts but s*** happens," she said as quoted by IOL.
“I would never get involved in politics in this country, it is dangerous. It's like Mexico, it's a warpath, and I’m really not into that,” she added.
But the gag is, Mzwanele shared a poster of Kuli wearing the parties t-shirt and she also said a few words after her "appointment." Well I've been at it for decades. We need to do better and there are many of us. Instead of burning the Schools, let’s extend them," Kuli said to a follower who expressed disappointment.
Speaking to the radio station, Kuli said she was invited to a function that's why she wore the t-shirt. “They invited me to a function, I wore a T-shirt. Next thing the picture is put on Twitter without my consent and knowledge and I got fired,” said Kuli.
A distraught Kuli then said, “Next thing the picture is put on Twitter without my consent and knowledge and I got fired. Now I am jobless. I am sitting without employment because of something I didn’t do. I am not a card-carrying member of ATM, I am not a member of ATM. All we were doing was talk about the safety in my area, now I don't have a job because of that.”
Following the claims she dropped on the radio station, Mzwanele was not pleased with Kuli's revelations so he urged her to correct the interview but she was not interested.
@kuliroberts I accord you the opportunity to correct the RUBBISH posted by Clement, failing which I will have no option but to set the record straight myself in the best manner I know how.
At the time, Manyi said Kuli was vying for ATM Councillor Candidate for Ward 65 in Tshwane. But he later changed his tune, “Due to unforeseen and confidential circumstances it is no longer possible to have Nomakula Roberts as a member and ward councilor candidate of the African Transformation Movement,” the statement starts off. “Further to the above Ms. Nomakula Roberts has to step down both as the member and ward councillor candidate at the ATM.”
Sunday World reached a decision to dismiss Kuli and wrote, “After long and careful deliberations, the management committee unanimously took a decision to suspend Roberts with immediate effect for allegedly violating the Press Code and bringing the company into disrepute,” reads an editorial published by Wally Mbhele.
