The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC), led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, will visit the North West this week.
The governing party’s top brass will assess the state of branches and regional structures ahead of the provincial conference. These structures were dissolved in 2018 following the disbandment of the provincial executive committee, which was led by former premier Supra Mahumapelo.
A provincial task team led by Premier Job Mokgoro was established soon after. From it the Interim Provincial Committee(IPC) was put in place, led by coordinator Hlomane Chauke. Their task was to establish branches prior to regional and provincial conferences and also to assess the state of municipalities across the province.
“The top six including members of the NWC will be dispatched across the province in Bojanala, Ngaka Modiri Molema, Ruth Segomotsi Mompati and Kenneth Kaunda for them to do an assessment and again to give support to the work that the IPC has been doing in the province. You know that the mandate of the IPC is to take the province to the conference,” says Chauke.
It has not been smooth sailing for the IPC with the women’s league accusing it of taking unilateral decisions. Acting secretary for the ANC Women’s League in the province, Bitsa Lenkopane, says: “We have evidence that can be tested; that is why we decided to go out and communicate this. To say when we have these women as the faces of the campaign in 2016, where we are having our share of 50% understanding the collective leadership that we had in our inputs. In this IPC for a period of nine months we tried to get engagements and we never had.”
Municipal services across the province is also in disarray with more than half of the municipalities in the North West currently under administration. This led the IPC to recall the troika of five municipalities, a decision that did not go down well.
A party member in Ngaka Modiri Molema Oompie Gotlagomang says: “It was so vivid in a sense that they gave report on all local municipalities under Ngaka Modiri Molemadistict but they excluded the most corrupt municipality Ngaka Modiri Molema. Now we can no longer afford to have the IPC that is factional and we should say we go the vote of seeing a brighter future in this IPC. In their modus operandi it is clear that they do not want to take us to conference.”
Political Analyst from North West University Professor, Andre Duvenhage, believes that it is this infighting that has necessitated the visit of the party’s leadership.
“The results is that there is no strong leadership coming from the ANC and my understanding is there is a lot of conflict going on, my understanding is that certain individuals coming from Supra Mahumapelo line are very active, I think Nono Maloi is one of the guys that will definitely compete for the conference but is now about putting down a legitimate conference, elect leadership before the 2021 local elections.”
The provincial conference of the ANC is expected to be held in January next year.
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