President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned ANC members who take party issues to court to refrain from doing that. Free State is amongst provinces that have been taking matters of the ANC to court.
Speaking in Bloemfontein during a Thuma Mina outreach as part of 2019 elections campaign trail, President Ramaphosa says party challenges should be addressed internally.
President Cyril Ramaphosa was well received in the Bloemfontein CBD during a meet and greet session with business people.
Ramaphosa’s visit was for renewal and unity ahead of 2019 elections. He however strongly condemned the ANC members who resort to court to address their differences.
“The solutions for the ANC are inside the ANC we must resolve challenges within the organisation and talk amongst ourselves rather than resorting to outside agancies. So as we move we are engaging, we are talking and this is how we are solving our problems.”
ANC disgruntled group has approached the High Court to challenge the legitimacy of the party’s provincial leadership.
Spokesperson Monnapule Ntamo explains, “We agree with the president that its not a good thing and we have been saying it repeatedly. However if the president thinks, we have long opened our doors we say give us the date and give us the venue. Let all affected parties meet for the Free State unity. But as long as that has not happened formally nothing will happen. So we are still going to approach the court unless the president give us the date of when should we meet with them.”
Ramaphosa says he is certain that electoral numbers for the upcoming 2019 General elections will be much higher than the previous elections.
“It shows that our people are ready to recommit themselves to the African National Congress and with this we are almost sure that our electoral numbers are going up much higher than we had in the last election. So this is a great moment for us particularly because through this we also listening to our people and their concerns and what they would like to see.”
Meanwhile, residents of Heidedal in Bloemfontein hope that the visit by President Cyril Ramaphosa will spearhead service delivery. Ramaphosa has assured the community of Heidedal that their clinic will be revamped soon.
Residents say they will not vote in next year’s elections if service delivery issues are not addressed.
One resident says, “If we are not getting land we are not going to vote. We are not even criminals, we were trying to occupy a piece of land and police just came and open fire on us. Are we not part of SA? Are we not South Africans?”
Meanwhile, ANC’s secretary general Ace Magashule has urged Qwaqwa residents in the eastern Free State to register to vote for next year’s general elections. Magashule says they want to hear people’s challenges before drafting their election campaign.
“We need to mount a biggest campaign of making sure that people must rely on themselves and not just sit and say government will do things for us here to encourage, motivate and agitate for them to wake up and do things themselves we know of the economy globally there are challenges petrol, paraffin hikes, inflation. We are going to address challenges of service delivery. The young kids who are at school in two weeks time we shall have collected in a every street in this area.”
The ANC has also deployed party Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte to Welkom in Matjhabeng as well as NEC member Noxolo Kiewit to Botshabelo as part of the Thuma Mina Campaign.
