The Gauteng African National Congress Executive Committee has decided to allow the five branches from Ekurhuleni Region to participate in the conference set to begin in Benoni, Johannesburg, on Friday.
Ekurhuleni also has 19 quarantined votes, where Mzwandile Masina was provisionally elected as the regional Chairperson at a conference last month.
Provincial Secretary of the ANC Jacob Khawe says the PEC has agreed to allow them into the conference, but their votes will be quarantined and the matter of Ekurhuleni will be attended to by the PEC in due course.
This has seen the 14th Gauteng elective conference delayed for several hours, as the PEC was in discussions on the way forward on the matter.
Khawe says there’s nothing more that can further delay the resumption of the conference.
“The conference should ago ahead and these branches be allowed to participate in the conference, as all other delegates and vote like any other delegate. However, until you conclude their issue, you should quarantine their votes. So that’s the decision of the PEC,” says Khawe.
Security
Security has been beefed up in and around The Lakes Hotel in Benoni, east of Johannesburg at the venue of the provincial elective conference.
Police have been deployed in their numbers, checking every car entering the hotel, ahead of the start of this much anticipated conference.
PEC members, Lebogang Maile and Panyaza Lesufi are contesting for the position of Provincial Chairperson.
Khawe says the issue of security is part of the SAPS public order policing and there’s nothing untoward.
“In many conferences, the disruptions are done by friends of delegates. People who are not supposed to be in the conference. People who come drunk and armed. And based on that the SAPS have a new law on public gathering, then it impose the restrictions that, thus is they should deploy.”
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