Johannesburg - ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has told the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee (PEC) that it will not be disbanded.
This comes after reports suggested that the party was planning to disband the committee.
Ramaphosa said this as the ANC’s National Working Committee (NWC) was visiting KZN as part of the party’s renewal programme aimed at reconnecting its constituencies, organisational structures and communities.
“There is no decision, no reason, and no plan to disband the PEC. We have got a leadership that is leading this province. So those rumours are just flying around in the sky. We are here, as we are going to be doing in all other provinces, to consolidate the unity that has been forced to strengthen the ANC and also look at how the national government can assist and strengthen the ANC in the province. So there is no plan whatsoever to disband any of our structures. So get it from me, we want to sustain them, not disband them,” Ramaphosa said.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the key to the NWC meeting with the PEC would be a strong reflection on the views, concerns and proposals of their structures on the ground.
“Our message to our structures is very clear. It is renewal time. Where there are challenges, like with the school nutrition problem, we expect action and consequence management. I have told the MECs in KZN who are with me in this meeting that if there is corruption, they must investigate and deal with it, and if they don’t, I will deal with them,” said Mbalula.
He said most ANC KZN branches were undergoing a process of renewing their mandates.
“For most of them, their mandate has collapsed; there were some rumblings at the beginning of the meeting. The branches are beginning to speak, which is a very important part of this visit,” said Mbalula.
There are places in KZN where there is no water. Mbalula said the Water and Sanitation Minister and other officials were looking into the issue.
“Where we are in charge, potholes must be closed and roads must be fixed. We will get an elaborative plan from the Water and Sanitation Department on what is being done to address water scarcity or challenges in municipalities such as Msunduzi Local Municipality,” Mbalula said.
He said load shedding was a big problem that the ruling party was working on.
“When we attacked this thing of electricity, we did make the point that this is a huge challenge that must not only be reversed, but must be dealt with decisively. We realise every day that the problem is bigger than we thought. Still, our plan is to deal with load shedding, and that is the mandate we give to the government decisively. It could be today, tomorrow, or at the end of the year. We want load shedding to be done away with in South Africa,” said Mbalula.
The Star