Return of United Democratic Front in change-making meeting

Neglected poor South Africans may have a new voice with the revival of the apartheid era United Democratic Front (UDF) as a civic movement to tackle grassroots issues.

Former UDF activists will converge in Riboville in Sunninghill, north of Johannesburg, on Saturday to chart the way forward on how the body will operate in its newly adopted role as a nonpartisan civic movement with people-centred focus.

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The activists comprise UDF stalwarts, former apartheid era detainees, political prisoners, civic structures and labour unions, the yesteryear formerly classified minority group leaders, nongovernmental organisations and like-minded individuals and groups.

The event – to be attended by representatives from all the nine provinces –is billed as significant in the post democracy era due to the role the original UDF played in the fight against apartheid.

The meeting, to be conducted under the UDF SA brand and name, would focus in the main on the “active citizenry for transformation and accountability”, which is also its driving motto.

According to UDF SA interim national coordinator Jo Mboweni, the meeting is aimed at discussing, resolving and implementing the UDF’s dreams of a united, nonracial, nonsexist and nonpartisan South Africa with “active citizenry for transformation and accountability” as the guiding principle.

“UDF SA believes that almost all of the challenges imposed on the Republic of South Africa and her people cannot and will not be resolved without the participation of the citizens, thus the route of a viable civic movement [UDF SA] is long overdue.

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“It is our resolve that we find solutions to the bulk of the community policing forums, the school governing bodies, the card committees and those in whose hands the challenges of services delivery are invested, to be functional,” he said.

Mboweni said delegates to the gathering would have to focus on the high rates of unemployment, crime and the other known social ills.

A revival of township and rural economies’ revival programme is expected to be deliberated at the gathering.

“The communities must be assisted through programmes that are locally managed and maintained to solving most of their present challenges,” Mboweni said.

It is expected that the delegates would also discuss the delayed Agri Blended Finance, a project driven by the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development and some commercial banks.

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“We envisage that the project can assist in achieving the dreams of sustainable black commercial farmers, food security, the land issue and to grow the rural areas and the small dorpies’ economies,” Mboweni said.

“The UDF SA believes that the issue of transformation cannot be driven by the government but by the people. Social and economic transformation must replace the BEE or the B-BBEE and tenderpreneur mentality among South Africans.

“The municipalities and the government departments and the business sectors must shift from outsourcing and casual workers practices to the insourcing and permanent job opportunities as a matter of urgency.”

UDF SA will immediately after the meeting launch its provincial, district/metro and ward committees or structures ahead of the organisation’s planned “people’s convention” scheduled to take place in April.

The body intends to invite all of the former UDF leaders and activists, former presidents of the country, provincial premiers and the representatives of the church, registered political parties, business leaders and tribal authorities.

“The people’s convention will seek from the leaders of our various sectors their buy-in to all collaborate with the UDF SA in addressing our challenges as a state,” Mboweni said.