Durban - The ANC national executive committee (NEC) has given the 11 KwaZulu-Natal regions until the end of this weekend to finalise the sitting of branch general meetings (BGM).
NEC spokesperson, Edna Molewa, said NEC members overseeing the process included herself, Lindiwe Sisulu, Dakota Legoete, Candith Mashego and Sibongile Besani.
Molewa said they had moved the provincial conference by two weeks and that it would commence in the second week of May.
She said a meeting was held on Thursday with the top five leaders of each of the province’s 11 regions, including regions that do not have “fully fledged leadership, but task teams.”
The improvement was significant, she said. “Five regions have reached the threshold and are ready for their conferences.”
The regions that reached their 70% minimum threshold are the Far North, Moses Mabhida, Emalahleni, Greater KwaDukuza and Harry Gwala.
“In the Lower South Coast we’re still doing the verification and finalising their audit report because there were queries about membership numbers,” she said. Their audit report has not been finalised in time.
Bheki Ntuli, eThekwini regional secretary, said Thursday’s meeting was for the regions to update the provincial interim structure on the progress of BGM processes.
“With so many regional conferences coming up, the province has to gather us all to check what we have done in preparation, and to check if all is going according to plan.
“That was the intention of the meeting,” Ntuli said.
Ntuli said that the eThekwini region expected to reach the 70% threshold of the sitting of BGMs by this weekend.
Meanwhile, the elective conference of the Moses Mabhida Region, initially set for this weekend, was postponed due to tensions between rival factions in the region.
On Monday, members of the pro-Cyril Ramaphosa faction in the region attempted to force their way into a consultative meeting in Howick, but were stopped by bodyguard - a video of the incident has gone viral.
Despite the postponement of its conference, Molewa said the Moses Mabhida region had completed all its BGMs.
“There was a scuffle outside and there is an investigation to establish who exactly was engaged in that scuffle because it doesn’t sound like its people from Moses Mabhida, but from some other place.
“We’re looking into it as the interim structure and the NEC deployees.
“The investigation has to be be completed before the conference so that this kind of thing doesn’t re-occur,” Molewa said.