South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress(ANC) is set to deploy a team of its national executive committee members to KwaZulu-Natal province to help prepare for next year’s national elections while its national working committee (NWC) plans to return to the province to ensure governance challenges that it noted at its weekend-oversight visit are being addressed.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula both said there was no plan to disband the provincial executive committee, but conceded there were significant challenges in the province.
Some ANC members called on the NWC to disband the provincial executive committee (PEC) and other structures in the wake of the near collapse of the National School Nutrition Programme contract, which affected 5 400 schools that feed 2 million pupils.
The worrisome financial state of eThekwini Metro was also raised, with experts being sent to assist the metro in terms of Section 154 of the Constitution after the metro failed to spend R322 million it received in grant funding; and over dire water and sanitation infrastructure challenges.
During a briefing yesterday, Mbalula said service delivery challenges and failures required systemic responses.
“Among the issues flagged across the entire province is the provision of water. The underlying process of the water challenges ranges from inadequate bulk-water supply provision, to high volumes of water losses due to poorly maintained and ageing water supply infrastructure, sewage spillages due to poorly maintained and ageing infrastructure, and load shedding.
Mbalula described the saga of the school feeding scheme as “a matter of serious concern”.
“The NWC has taken an unequivocal position. While there may be an explanation of how the problem came about, consequences must be effected without delay.
“We expect the ANC-led administration to have a very low threshold for incompetence.
“This programme affects millions of children from working-class communities and we expect the relevant officials to be meticulous in their planning processes, but moreover we expect very thorough political oversight on programmes of this nature,” Mbalula said.
They were also concerned at the slow pace at which municipalities are able to address auditing findings, he said.
“The audit outcomes in this province are among the worst in the country, particularly in municipalities where coalitions are led by opposition parties.
“Investigation in such municipalities must be conducted swiftly and urgently. Where there is political instability and poor service delivery patterns in ANC municipalities, this must be resolved by the provincial leadership urgently and by all means necessary.
“The NWC has noted that this province has substantial challenges which require a follow-up visit.”
Mbalula said he had been mandated to meet with the PEC and raise some of the organisational challenges the province faces and solutions.
“We will deploy a team of NEC members to work with the province to prepare for the next year’s election campaign.
“In the next two weeks we will meet with the PEC to look at what they have done with regard to the things we have told them to do, including governance in eThekwini.”
On leadership in the province, Mbalula said the party could not deliver if there was in-fighting, purging, patronage, and corruption.
“All of those issues we will address with the PEC. We need organised leadership that respects the structures and does not act with heavy handedness. We don’t need an ANC riddled with divisions.”
Mbalula said the ANC would also soon meet with US ambassador Reuben Brigety after he publicly announced he had evidence that South Africa had sold arms and ammunition to Russia.
Mbalula said they did not want to talk about the expulsion of the ambassador, but want to understand the issues he has raised about the ANC.
“In our view, a diplomat must understand, especially from a superpower like the US, the separation of party approach and government, and why there has been a diplomatic fallout.
“We were taken aback by the ambassador’s comments, for which he has since apologised,” Mbalula said.
