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ANC must develop policies that will change lives of the poor and marginalised: Levy Ndou

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The African National Congress (ANC) policy conference takes place on the last week of July 2022. It takes place at a time the party is focusing on the project of unity and renewal.

It also takes place when the image of the ANC is tainted by issues relating to corruption, factionalism, service delivery challenges, load shedding and the poor performance of the party in the 2021 local government elections.

The ANC’s performance in elections is constantly going down and this is confirmed by the results of the elections from 2009 until now in both local and national elections.

The ANC has to position herself in order to achieve the following:

  • Develop policies that will change the lives of the poor and the marginalised in South Africa.
  • The ANC should be able to identify urgent issues to be dealt with and develop clear programmes on the long-term challenges that South Africa is facing.

The ANC is created with an ambition of being the leader of society and the policy conference should position the ANC as the true leader of society. The policies to be developed should be based on the biasness toward the poor and the marginalised in South Africa. The policy conference should give life to the resolution and the expectation is for the policies to be implemented. An area for implementation of the policies should get the attention of the conference.

The character of the ANC delegate at the policy conference

The calibre and character of a delegate to a policy conference talks to the outcome of the conference. The policy conference is known to be a contestation/ festival of ideas and views to improve the lives of the citizens.

The delegates should be in a position to put the party in the right path for change. This policy conference should be able to bring the ANC members close to each other but in the interest of all South Africans.

The policy conference should avoid dealing with narrow personal agenda of individuals but should focus on making SA a much better place to live in

The state of the SOEs

The SOEs are in a state of total collapse and they should be another area of focus by the ANC. What could be an honest observation is that the government led by the ANC has allowed the SOEs to collapse in their hands.

The ANC delegates at the policy conference should develop concrete strategies that should be focusing on resuscitating the SOEs and make them deliver on their mandate.

The performance of the ANC will also be gauged on how they respond to the ailing state of our SOEs. The most common challenge being the continuation of load shedding which is blamed on the ANC.

Focus on building the brand ANC

There are of course many challenges that the ANC has to deal with.

Of the main focus should be to consolidate the unity and renewal project. The ANC has to do self-reflection on corruption, factionalism and service delivery challenges.

The ANC should have a clear plan on how they respond to factionalism and factional tendencies within its ranks. They should be focusing on matters that change the lives of the citizens and not be easily diverted by factional tendencies which are dangerous in the life of the party.

To build the brand ANC will require the policy conference to develop clear guidelines that relates to how members of the ANC should conduct themselves. The image of the ANC is tainted due to corruption and factionalism.

The leniency of the ANC on factionalism, ill-discipline and corruption has a potential to be its down fall. Difficult as it may be, the party should have clear guidelines for discipline for those who are found to be involved in factional tendencies and corruption.

The expectation is that the step aside resolution will be another centre of discussion. The ANC should still relook at that resolution and provide a clear direction to avoid confusion and misinterpretation of the resolution.

Author – Levy Ndou

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