ANC orgy of greed

INDICATIONS are that the ANC’s controversial provincial conference in KwaZulu-Natal, later this month, will not go ahead after all. Provincial co-ordinator Sihle Zikalala said the conference would not take place while people still mourned party members murdered, and while there was still a climate of fear.

Several ANC members have been killed in recent months, and there have been no arrests.

Zikalala was elected provincial ANC leader at a party conference a court later declared null and void.

ANC members who took Zikalala and the party to court, say various underhanded methods were used to prevent them from making their numbers count at the various regional conferences which chose the delegates to go to the provincial conference.

Zikalala – an ardent supporter of former president Jacob Zuma and his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma – remains in power in KwaZulu-Natal.

ANC supporters of President Cyril Ramaphosa have continued to complain that nothing was done to address their concerns despite the court ruling.

They say they continue to be prevented from participating in branch and regional conferences, sometimes being stopped from entering venues at gunpoint and, therefore, wanted the provincial conference postponed.

This while vocal members were being picked off one by one.

At the home of the latest victim, Ramaphosa said he had instructed the Justice, Defence and State Security ministries to find the killers.

KZN violence monitor Mary de Haas says the police should concentrate on the taxi industry, notorious for using hit men, to find the killers. However, this will be difficult because, as she points out, the taxi industry is politically well-connected, and political interference in the investigation cannot be ruled out.

The KwaZulu-Natal killings show that Ramaphosa and his supporters have zero influence in the province and, because of their slim majority in the party, are finding it difficult to manage the situation at a national level.

According to De Haas, the reason for the killings is simple: the battle is over control of budgets and resources, and the victims – including councillors and municipal managers – are usually those exposing corruption.

It is sad to witness the ANC eating away at itself in an orgy of greed, with little regard for those it purports to serve, and using rhetoric like “radical economic transformation” to mask brazen looting.

The party is urged to return to the principles of its founding fathers.

The provincial conference should be postponed until the killers, and their handlers, are caught and a free and fair process can be guaranteed.