The ANC has less than 30 days to mend relations with the African Independent Congress (AIC) or lose Ekurhuleni, the Rustenburg municipality and another municipality in Umhlaba -Walingana in Kwa Zulu-Natal to the opposition.
The AIC has been governing the three municipalities with the ANC since the 2016 local elections on condition that the ANC led government returns Matatiele to KwaZulu-Natal. But it claims the ANC has shown no commitment to honour the agreement and now risks losing all three municipalities.
The AIC has given the ANC leadership until September 13 to honour the two parties’ agreement of returning the people of Matatiele in the Eastern Cape to the administration of their original province, KwaZulu-Natal.
On Monday, AIC wrote a letter to ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule asking him to convene a high level meeting of the top six officials of both organisations to salvage what is left of their relations.
AIC Secretary General, Mahlubi Jafta, says the ANC will pay dearly for failing to honour their 2016 agreement.
Jafta says, ” The current leadership of the ANC has shown no commitment to what the two parties have agreed. My office has been trying many times to communicate with the office of the ANC SG asking what the ANC is doing to re-incorporate Matatiele back into KZN, but unfortunately the ANC is not responding to that. It is then that we met last week as the NEC of the AIC and decided that we must give the ANC 30 days to show its commitment to the coalition between the two parties, failing which we will have no choice but to decide for the AIC – something that will save the coalition or not between the two parties. ”
Jafta says they understand all the reasons that the ANC had advanced for its delay in honouring their agreements, but now they feel this will not happen.
However, the ANC says it is committed to the coalition, insisting that for now, there is no deadlock in discussions to save their relations
ANC Head of Communications in the Presidency, Zizi Kodwa says, ” There are on-going discussions between the ANC and the AIC which I am part of at national level. I don’t think we are at a stage where we can say we have reached a deadlock and therefore had collapsed – but the two parties are committed to once more – out to ensure that where we govern together we improve service delivery and make local government more effective. ”
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