The ruling party and its alliance partner Cosatu are set to bump heads for the first time this year, with Cosatu poised to tell the ANC’s lekgotla that the government’s New Growth Path needs to be overhauled if it wants the union federation’s support.
The lekgotla, which will be attended by leaders from the ANC and its leagues, ministers and deputy ministers, ANC premiers, directors-general and alliance leaders, and which will take place at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, will focus on the ANC’s policy priorities as outlined by President Jacob Zuma at the party’s 99th birthday bash (January 8 statement) at the weekend.
It will also focus on organisation building and the upcoming local government elections, set to happen within the next five months.
A meeting of the party’s national executive committee will today prepare for the lekgotla, scheduled for tomorrow and Friday.
This will be followed by a cabinet lekgotla, which is expected to start in about a week’s time and which would be followed by similar makgotla of provincial structures.
Cabinet spokesman Themba Maseko said yesterday the exact dates for the cabinet gathering would be decided today. Zuma indicated in an SABC interview over the weekend that job creation was set to top this meeting’s agenda.
The ANC’s lekgotla would also set the agenda for the State of the Nation Address to be delivered by Zuma on February 10. Parliament’s press office announced this week that the speech would again take place and be broadcast on television in the evening, following last year’s success with this arrangement.
The lekgotla will also look at job creation and poverty, and the ANC’s 2009 election promises related to economic development, education, health, crime and rural development.
Cosatu said yesterday that the weaknesses in the New Growth Path as announced late last year showed “that it was not a product of collective wisdom of alliance processes”.
Spokesman Patrick Craven said the plan “falls far short of the comprehensive development strategy capable of unleashing a plan that will fundamentally transform our economy and adequately address the triple challenges of extraordinary high levels of unemployment, poverty and deepening inequalities”.
He added that it needed to be “overhauled if it is to succeed in uniting the alliance behind the type of programme envisaged by all alliance formations”.
Cosatu is expected to present a detailed critique of the plan at the ANC’s lekgotla, as well as at the alliance summit due at the end of the month. It previously indicated that it objected to the call in the plan for pay restraint, which it said would negatively affect workers while bosses would disregard any such measures when it came to their own pay.
Last weekend, Zuma publicly endorsed the plan for the first time. He called on the government, business and labour to work together in a “social partnership” to make the plan work and share benefits and sacrifices equitably.
Aubrey Matshiqi, from the Centre for Policy Studies, said the ANC was facing a “credibility challenge”, and had to ensure that it implemented the promises it had made. “I think that this being an election year the ANC is very much aware that it is losing credibility to deliver,” he said, adding that, although the ANC faced no real challenge from another party, it could see a decline in actual votes.
To this end, the ANC should set goals for specific timeframes, such as how many jobs it expected to create this year.
Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy Steven Friedman said he did not expect to see any dramatic announcements from the ANC as it was too busy trying to deal with its internal fights ahead of the elections. - Political Bureau