ANC will get their hands dirty to fix challenges
Nasrec resolutions – a befitting farewell to a great African heroine
THE year 2018 has been declared the year of renewal, unity and jobs. As we remember the examples of Nelson Mandela, Albertina Sisulu and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, we should focus on the tasks ahead. After the last ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting, the secretary-general’s office released the report and resolutions of the ANC’s 54th national conference, held last year in Nasrec.
The resolutions of that conference set the tone for the next five years and will be highlighted every year in the NEC’s January 8 statement.
These resolutions must entreat every ANC member to work towards building the ANC and ensuring that we champion the most disadvantaged in our society.
The resolutions must enjoin each member of the ANC to do their bit in bringing about the national democratic society that the Freedom Charter envisaged and which people like Nelson Mandela, Albertina Sisulu and Winnie Mandela sacrificed so much for.
The theme of renewal, unity and jobs therefore comes at an appropriate time as we continue to build the ANC. At the conference, we resolved that we needed to strengthen, support and reinforce our branches by focusing on sectors, community issues and campaigns.
The ANC must be at the forefront of every concern in the community. We should be leading at grass-roots level without seeing the need to control communities, but rather we must be of service to our communities.
If this grass-roots interaction with our people requires various voting districts, for example , to set up units or sub-branches, then this must be encouraged. The concerns of one voting district in the community are not necessarily the concerns of the entire ward. The entire branch cannot focus solely on that one issue.
At the same time, sub-regions must work together to co-ordinate branches in order to work with the municipality, where the ANC governs, and to work as a united force in opposition, where the ANC does not govern.
Sub-regions must hold municipalities accountable, as this is a basic tenet of our democracy and of the ANC.
The resolutions then went further to state that new members of the ANC must be inducted within three months of joining and must be deployed to a sub-committee in which they must work.
We must inculcate within our branches that all members have the responsibility in carrying out the work of the ANC and not just branch executive committee members.
Through ensuring that every member in the branch participates actively in at least one sub-committee, the BEC (branch executive committee) must draft an annual plan to ensure that an ongoing community profile is established, together with sectors in the community and their issues.
This community profile must also ensure that the issues of the community are articulated and that concrete plans be established as to how those issues will be tackled.
In fact, the resolutions instructed that community policing forums, school governing bodies, clinic committees, and any other participatory structures, should have ANC representation on them.
This is not mandatory but the ANC branch must ensure that it is represented in these structures. A sectoral outreach plan must be developed and again members of the ANC should be engaging, joining and participating in those sectoral bodies.
The ANC branch must ensure an active presence in the local taxi association, for example, so that the organisation is aware of the challenges faced by that industry and if anything needs immediate attention. Unfortunately, often the ANC branch does not engage the taxi association and therefore we do not understand the frustrations of that industry.
Even more so, the resolutions insist that councillors and MPs as well as MPLs deployed must work with branches and ensure performance audits so that work is done and accountability takes place.
The conference also discussed the possibility of a two-tier membership system but this was rejected. The system would have been based on a active membership and supporters. What was reaffirmed was the involvement of branches in communities and activities. Branches are to have a visible presence in their communities.
All of this becomes important for the wider South African society for two reasons. In the first instance, and given that it is an election year, we wish to remind members of the ANC of their need to implement what the conference resolved.
If every branch does these things listed above, we are certain that we will control the moral highground to achieve a good result in next year’s national and provincial elections.
We must remind ourselves, as members of the ANC, that we will not go the route that other parties have gone in parachuting public representatives from outside the organisation and from outside our communities. These parties believe that public service, through representing the people, is like any other job that one can simply apply for with a CV.
Rather, ANC members must remember that their test would be how dirty their hands are in trying to fix the challenges of the community.
Those who wish to serve as representatives of the people must be tried-and-tested community activists. ANC leaders and representatives must endear themselves to the community and not see themselves as demigods but rather as servants as Mam’ Albertina and Mam’ Winnie were.
Yet in the second instance and broader sense, members of communities should not be surprised when people from the ANC wish to engage with them.
As the governing party, we believe that we must occupy ourselves with listening to and attending to all our people, in different situations and circumstances.
Ours is a masses-based organisation. We believe that we must find ourselves in every corner of our country and ensure that we are attentive to the needs of our people, black and white. We are guided by the principle that we need to work together.
It is what Nelson Mandela, Albertina Sisulu and Winnie Mandela did. They wanted to change their country for the better. All South Africans can be a part of this change.
WE MUST OCCUPY OURSELVES WITH LISTENING TO AND ATTENDING TO ALL OUR PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES