Mabuza’s closing remarks

MBOMBELA – Mr DD Mabuza has declared that the Provincial General Council (PGC) was a tremendous success because of the level of discipline and behavior of all delegates.

He also mentioned that the delegates’ sittings in the various commissions and their participation, thereof, is a sign of growth in stature and quality.

“As we leave here, I sincerely request all branches to work on policies to conscientise all our delegates. Our organizational renewal programme touches our movement.

The ANC leads and the ANC lives. Once again, I want you to put into cognizance, what we said to the Deputy President, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, that we want to apologise to the NEC when we pronounced that they were sitting in Cape Town and had been granted the right to proceed.

“We were, however, forced by circumstances because we had postponed the PGC many times. We apologise. We will never do it again. I also want to thank President Jacob Zuma for allowing the Deputy President to come and address us.

“We appreciate the President’s gesture and we met with the Provincial Secretary and wrote a formal letter of apology and hope they will find it in order,” explained Mabuza during his closing remarks on Saturday.

Mabuza reiterated that the road ahead is a difficult one because of one or two subjective things that threaten peace and discipline in the movement. “We heard voices that were complaining about BGM conferences and other complaints. All the processes were followed before this conference was held.

“You must all find it in order to accept decisions taken at this PGC. Very soon we will hold the provincial conference of the Women’s League. Hope you will do us proud.

There will also be the national conference of the youth league, whereby, our provincial youth league representatives must prepare themselves to be good representatives.

“It is time to learn and be moulded into leaders of tomorrow, but you must respect your elders. I know the youth is creative and like to use slang words, but do all of that within a respective manner as possible,” he advised.

Turning onto the forthcoming local government elections in 2016, he called out to all delegates to “close the space” between themselves as branches and the community as a whole.

“Call community meetings. Do not run away from the people. Do not rush into replacing your councillors, but improve on all the efforts put into improving service delivery. Let 2015 be a year of service delivery in real terms.

“We must ensure, as members of the ANC and branches, that all government institutions which are under the ANC governance, deliver services to the people. We also call on all ANC deployed in all spheres of governance, to deliver as promised.

“Don’t allow detractors of the movement to exploit the space that you occupy as the ruling party. It is you as ordinary members, branches and delegates, to sniff for problems in the various sectors of governance and address such problems, forthwith.

“We call upon you to defend the ANC at all cost and through the holding of the Local Government Summit, we will strategise based on your input drawn from your interactions and initiatives actively gotten from the people directly,” he added.

Addressing the issue of the importance of the unity of the Alliance Partners, Mabuza said the movement needs to cement the unity of the Alliance through holding a bosberaad that will really heal the disunity that exists within the Alliance Partners as a whole, “put aside the painful things that emanated along the way”.

“We must assist Cosatu to find peace and unity. We must not rejoice about what is taking place within Cosatu itself. Let’s put differences aside and put workers interests first than individual interests. The calls for organizational renewal of 2007, are still relevant and must be taken into cognizance.

There must be consistency and we must uphold all the good things. It must be easy to identify an ANC member from an ordinary person.

“We expect you to be disciplined and principled members of the movement and be a living example of what a true cadre is in society. Organizational renewal means we must organize our branches and they must have life.

I don’t understand why you should allow people to exploit concerns of the community when the branches are there. You are the true representatives of the people. Don’t pull punches when talking about service delivery concerns, but resolve concerns of the people as the ANC in government.

“I urge you to work with Sanco, Cosatu and the SACP and allow them to attend your meetings. The Alliance must be alive in all your endeavors. The name SACP must not annoy, we need to work with them because you must remember you are leaders of the Alliance as the ANC.

“I know we have delivered services, although there are still cases of those left behind. Anything left over, must be delivered.

As you head to your respective homes, your morale must be high. Work harder and strengthen the ANC in all programmes with the hope that the people will acknowledge the good things we do. Our story is a good story to tell and we are not afraid to tell it as it is,” he ended.