Gauteng ANC elective meeting ‘marred’ by disputes before it even begins

Despite only West Rand branch delegates being accredited to participate in the four-day ANC Gauteng elective conference starting today, party provincial secretary Jacob Khawe was yesterday bullish about the gathering achieving its objective to put society first.

But he conceded the region faced serious leadership challenges. Absent will be West Rand regional leaders, some of whom have attempted to halt the provincial conference through a court challenge, an action seen by independent political analyst Dr Ralph Mathekga as a problem for the ANC.

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“The reality is that if they go ahead with the conference while there is an outstanding dispute, that is bound to bring risk to conference results – likely to be challenged in court.

“In almost all recent provincial ANC conferences this has been a sticking problem – intractable disputes breeding an environment of mistrust.”

Khawe said political leadership challenges in the West Rand, which contributed to a regional gathering not being held, were being handled by members of the provincial executive committee (PEC).

A meeting, said Khawe, was held to resolve the leadership question and other related challenges in the region.

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“The issue is not only about why the regional conference did not take place, but issues of the West Rand, like the servicing of regional branches, municipal issues, performance in local government – a matter the provincial conference will discuss.

“The provincial report highlights the decline of the ANC in local government election, establishing what the basic problems are.

“Among six problems identified in the organisational report [are] lack of the ANC’s connection with the people and weaker organisational structures of the party. This conference is an opportunity to look at the challenges that we must resolve.”

Khawe said the 63 West Rand branches were not excluded.

“They will fully participate as delegates in the conference. The people who are not going to participate are the absent regional leadership.”

He said the ANC national appeals committee was dealing with seven disputes from party members. The PEC of the ANC in Gauteng gave the dispute resolution committee at national level until yesterday to resolve issues.”

He said allegations by the SA National Civics Organisation against health MEC Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi regarding multimillion-rand tender fraud at Tembisa Hospital to win votes at the conference were referred to the Gauteng premier.

“We want this conference to deal with issues of society,” he added.

– brians@citizen.co.za

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