Johannesburg - The ANC faces the grim reality of losing Gauteng in 2019, and ultimately being dislodged from the national government in 2024, unless it deals decisively with the corrosive problems of corruption, arrogance and attacks on state institutions.
And unless the ANC urgently re-examines the type of leaders it attracts, it could disintegrate because some of the crisis facing it is as a result of actions by certain individuals it seems incapable of taking punitive measures against.
This was the ominous warning delivered by Gauteng ANC chairperson Paul Mashatile on Friday when he delivered his political overview at the provincial executive committee meeting in Johannesburg.
The ANC in the province has also been holding its lekgotla this weekend.
Mashatile’s written speech – seen by The Sunday Independent – was delivered on Friday. It offered a penetrating critique of the crisis facing the party, and was laden with undercurrents of an organisation in denial but on a path of self-destruction.
“We must resolve all internal issues that continue to bedevil our work as these have the effect of reversing our gains. Chief among the challenges that we need to tackle head on are corruption, arrogance, denialism and attacks on state institutions,” he said.
Until late last year, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s job hung in the balance after the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) charged him for fraud in relation to former SA Revenue Service (Sars) deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay’s early retirement payout.
NPA boss Shaun Abrahams later withdrew the charges against Gordhan, but it later emerged that Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza had, a day before the charges were dropped, sent a letter to Abrahams accusing him of buckling under pressure from opposition parties and civil society groups. Then-Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s “State of Capture” report has also highlighted meddling by the executive in state-owned enterprises such as Eskom.
Mashatile’s speech was a brutal assessment of the current problems plaguing the ANC’s senior leadership, particularly the failure to tackle the problems.
“It is unfortunate that the dominant narrative is that the ANC, as the governing party, has dragged and continues to drag its feet in dealing with these matters.
“Our failure, or is it reluctance to deal swiftly with the allegations/observations contained in the “State of Capture” report and ignoring comrades who were willing to come up with evidence to support this assertion is not helping our cause to reclaim public confidence and trust but serves to feed into this unfortunate narrative.
“The ANC can ill-afford not to act decisively on these and other matters that are standing out like a sore thumb.”
For the ANC to rescue itself from the crisis it is in, Mashatile urged members to elect true leaders, as explained in the party’s 2001 “Through the eye of needle” document, which outlines the attributes that will help identify a true leader. Such a leader, he said, should have the attributes of Oliver Tambo who occupied “a moral high ground”, and “internationalist and intellectual par excellence”.
Mashatile warned of disastrous consequences in the next elections unless the ANC stopped the factionalism and vetted its leaders ahead of its December elective conference.
“The movement is in trouble! Muddling along as before might see us lose Gauteng in 2019, with some commentators even predicting the possibility of the ANC being out of power nationally in 2024.”
He said it was crucial that the party organise an elective congress that would foster cohesion, instead of simply going to the conference with the sole aim of electing new leadership and avoid slate politics.
He said he has been forced to intervene in some of the coalition governments in Gauteng, which had been plagued by walkouts and infighting among councillors because of disputes over “appointment of accounting officers and chairs of chairs”, among other things.
He added that he agreed with ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Joel Netshitenzhe’s call that the ANC should position itself to exploit whatever differences that could arise from such coalition governments.