Johannesburg - The ANC has dissolved the ANC Youth League's national executive committee, secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said on Monday.
“[This is] as a consequence of its continued ill-disciplined behaviour that brought the organisation into disrepute on numerous occasions,” Mantashe told reporters in Johannesburg.
“An interim team will be selected and put in place by the NWC [national working committee].”
The decision was taken at a three-day African National Congress national executive committee (NEC) meeting held in Irene, south of Pretoria, at the weekend.
Mantashe said the NEC had instructed that all processes be stopped immediately with regard to the pending provincial and regional conferences of the ANCYL.
Some were trying to rush these conferences so that leaders could be elected.
“We can't have a leadership that is instant,” said Mantashe.
“There is a difference between filter coffee and instant coffee.”
The ANC has also dissolved its Limpopo's provincial leadership, Mantashe said.
“The PEC (provincial executive committee) has been dissolved for displaying totally un-ANC behaviour and institutionalised factional conduct,” he said.
“(It will) be replaced with an interim structure that will be given no more than nine months to work towards convening a provincial conference.”
A list of the provincial task team was being decided during a meeting on Monday. A provincial general council would be held in Limpopo on Sunday.
Mantashe said there were a number of issues in the province, which involved MECs and mayors who did not hold the same views as the PEC being removed.
It showed there was no ANC leadership in the province, there were groupings, and the ANC was paying the price.
“These issues cannot go unnoticed by the ANC,” he said.
Mantashe said dissolving the PEC would not affect government positions.
Provincial chairman Cassel Mathale is also the Limpopo premier.
“The PEC is elected in the inner conference of the ANC. That PEC is not government, so we'll dissolve the PEC not government,” he said.
Mantashe denied that dissolving the ANCYL NEC and the Limpopo PEC was a purging exercise.
“The Mangaung conference has come and gone... we don't go around purging people,” he said.
“You cannot be flat-footed and do nothing when things go wrong.” - Sapa