On Monday April 10, the ANC’s Ehlanzeni Regional Executive Committee (REC) celebrated its first 365 days since elected into office.
The regional chairperson, Jackie Macie, reflected on the year and reminisced on the highs and lows.
According to him, restoring order in the Nkomazi Local Municipality, restoring alliance relations, and hosting this year’s January 8 celebrations were some of the highs, while losing Ward 11 in Nkomazi was a sharp learning curve.
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“The ANC found itself having to deal with mutineers from within its own ranks in Nkomazi. Disgruntled councillors voted for the former mayor against the ANC National Executive Committee’s decision to have another mayor. The former mayor clung onto the mayorship for eight months until he was removed and dismissed from the ANC, together with five councillors who teamed up with the EFF to elect him.
“This collective, and the Provincial Executive Committee urgently came into the space after the conference, until normality was restored and a candidate selected by the NEC was elected. Out of four by-elections in Nkomazi, the ANC retained three and suffered one loss, which is Ward 11. In Bushbuckridge, there were three by-elections, and the ANC retained them all,” said Macie.
Uniting the ANC in the region and forging political stability while ensuring that branches are in good state, remains their priority.
He said the REC aims to strengthen the ANC caucuses in municipalities and urgently address ill discipline of their deployees, while simultaneously rolling out political education across the region to ensure their machinery is intact.
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He said this includes assisting the leagues to convene their congresses.
“The REC in its collective wisdom approved the proposed programme of action, which I tabled during the first REC meeting. The programme includes intensive induction of all branches, organisational renewal, intense roll-out of political education programmes, and conducting political engagement with alliance partners and other stakeholders, such as traditional leadership and faith organisations. We further intend to intensively induct all branches.
Surely, for the ANC to remain in governance, it needs to constantly be innovative, modernised and able to resolve complex challenges of the modern society. Our society is constantly changing and we as politicians are faced with new material challenges, and these need ideas, old and new, to resolve them.”
According to Macie, looking back on their journey and where they are now will help them stay relevant to the plight of the people and constantly correct where there is a need, and to put more effort where they might be lacking.
“A regular assessment of our work is necessary in order to know whether we should sustain our tactics or change them in order to achieve our objectives. The ANC exists in order to deliver total emancipation of our people from all sort of bondages.
“Given that we inherited an organisation that was almost in a moribund state in this region, I thought it would be prudent that we use this 12-month milestone to deliver activities undertaken, assess them and chart a way forward.”
