Pretoria - ANC leaders and members who pretended that “all was well” within the party were the “real enemies” of the revolution, ANC national executive committee member Fikile Xasa said in East London on Sunday.
Xasa was speaking at the party’s provincial policy conference where proposals aimed at “renewing” the ANC were discussed.
Xasa, who is also the Eastern Cape MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, launched a scathing attack on the Gupta family for interfering in South Africa's affairs.
“The people of South Africa voted for the ANC, and not the Gupta family.
"We will always speak out on the influence of the Gupta family into our affairs, even if some among us are not comfortable with that. The Gupta family is associated with corruption, and we know how the ANC is losing support because of corruption,” he said.
“If we are not honest in discussions about the challenges facing the ANC and the country, that will be a huge problem for our party. There is restlessness across the country and within the ANC, but funny enough there are people who want us to pretend that nothing is going wrong in our movement,” Xasa said.
He said people were withdrawing their support of the ANC because of the conduct of some of its leaders.
“The masses are not happy about the leaders of the ANC. What has been coming out, of which I am confirming, is that the ANC has leaders who do not care and are displaying arrogance.
“We have a problem of leaders who are not selfless, who place their individual interests, and those of their friends, before the interests of the people,” said Xasa.
He also appealed to ANC leaders to keep the door open for discussions with its veterans.
“The ANC has veterans and we need to listen to them. We need not refer to them as ‘groups’. We need to revolt against leaders who insult our veterans,” Xasa said.
Featuring highly on the agenda of the provincial policy conference was the proposal by ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane that audited ANC members should be allowed to vote in a system similar to general elections for leaders they want in the organisation, instead of the traditional norm of selected delegates.
Mabuyane told the Pretoria News that allowing audited members of the party to directly elect leaders would bring an end to concerns of vote buying and the manipulation of branches.
Other discussions were around policies concerning land reform, education and the empowerment of rural communities.