Cape Town - As all roads lead to the ANC National Policy Conference, the party in the Western Cape has firmly disagreed that the step-aside resolution should be scrapped or reviewed following proposals by the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.
Instead, it called for even harsher measures to be put in place for members who perform badly or are found guilty of corruption.
The party in the province also wants the cadre deployment process to be reviewed and deployment to be based on skills.
The proposals form part of those that will be tackled at the ANC’s sixth policy conference in Nasrec, Johannesburg, starting on Thursday.
ANC in the Western Cape held a media briefing on Wednesday on its consolidated proposals towards the conference.
Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) Policy Coordination member Nomi Nkondlo said cadre deployment should be based on specialisation in particular areas and the relevant skills.
“The cadre deployment process must be reviewed, and people must be deployed based on their capabilities. The deployment must be based on skills (understood as a reflection of qualifications and experience) that comrades have and to supplement the matter, sector specialisation is important. We must deploy highly qualified technocrats with strong organisational and ideological grounding,” she said.
Stellenbosch University political analyst Professor Zweli Ndevu said the issue of deployment of people with the requisite skills and experience was important.
“The failure of many entities of government has largely been due to lack of knowledge and required skills, not to underscore the political will which is important in creating an enabling environment.”
Ndevu believed the step-aside issue should be reviewed to at least be “in line with the law”. “Another important policy aspect is the consequence management policy implementation for all those found to be on the wrong side of the law.”
Cape Peninsula University of Technology political analyst Dr Kuhle Zwakala said the public could fault the ANC on many issues but policy was not one of them.
“ANC policies are largely intact, especially from a transformation, redress, economy viewpoint. Moreover, the province is falling into to the trap of believing their cadre deployment policy is flawed.
“There is nothing wrong with a deployment policy. In fact all political parties implement cadre deployment (preference on employing/deploying party members). The difference is other parties do not call it cadre deployment. The insinuation that ANC cadre deploying correlates to incompetence and corruption is myopic in my view,” he said.
According to Zwakala, what the province should argue was for a reinforced cadre deployment policy that prioritised qualifications, experience and specialisation before organisational loyalty and statistical constituency representation.
“Also, calls to scrap the step-aside rule are divergent to the ANC’s renewal process. This would be a perilous move going into an election,” he added.
The conference is an opportunity for the party to review policies adopted five years ago at its last national conference and make proposals on new policies.
This will also be in preparation for the much anticipated 55th national elective conference in December.
Cape Times