No nonsense Mashatile gets ANC branches to toe the line

It looks as though during his tenure as acting secretary-general, ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile will not entertain any political shenanigans within the party, regardless of where they emanate from.

He forced the Eastern Cape ANC to postpone its elective provincial conference scheduled for this weekend indefinitely until all outstanding disputes and appeals by aggrieved party branches are resolved.

Earlier, he issued strict instructions for all regional conferences at Dr WB Rubusana, Sara Baartman and Chris Hani to be postponed and where manipulation of branch general meetings results occurred, for the BGMs to be reconvened to hold new elections.

This impacted on this weekend’s provincial conference which had to be postponed, as well, pending the resolution of the outstanding disputes and appeals by branches that had complained to Luthuli House.

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ANC provincial task team coordinator Lulama Ngcukayitobi said their working committee had resolved to reschedule the provincial conference pending the resolution of all outstanding disputes that were before the ANC national dispute resolution committee.

Also, Mashatile had not yet signed the province’s verification report.

Verification looks at whether the province met the threshold to hold the conference and whether branch members were in good standing to attend the meeting.

An attempt by the province to push to hold the gathering, even when it was clear that only a few branches would participate, failed as Luthuli House insisted that the disputes should be resolved first.

Mashatile did not wait for the party to be taken to court, with at least 36 disgruntled branches in the Chris Hani region already having threatened legal action if the party went ahead with regional and provincial conferences.

They also threatened to interdict the provincial conference that was scheduled to start tomorrow.

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Since he took over as big boss at Luthuli House party headquarters after Jessie Duarte became ill, Mashatile has ensured things go according to procedure and he has followed party protocol.

For the first time, grassroots members have someone listen to them and act on their complaints about breaches of procedures in branch elections.

Mashatile’s new approach, that takes into consideration grassroots complaints, was unheard of in the ANC.

Previously, members’ grievances were all too frequently just ignored.