IN CRITICAL CONDITION
Official at the department of health confirms shortage of medical doctors at Grey Hospital in
King William’s Town
Wongama Gela was elected as the new ANC Chris Hani regional chair at the party’s regional conference in Gali Thembani in Komani on Sunday morning.
Gela received 144 votes to beat Intsika Yethu municipality mayor Jongumzi Cenga, who received 61 votes and former chair Kholiswa Vimbayo, who received 29 votes.
Myolise Toni took the deputy chair position with 138 votes while Bulelani Lali and Siyabulela Nxozi received 63 and 35 votes respectively.
Secretary Lusanda Sizani retained his position after beating Mlungisi Maki by 143 votes to 90.
Noxolo Abrahams-Ntantiso received 144 votes while Nomveliso Nyukwana received 73 votes.
Madoda Papiyana was uncontested for his position as regional treasurer.
ANC provincial chair Oscar Mabuyane, who addressed delegates on Saturday night described a party in decline, saying the party in the region had a membership decline of 4,000. “This owes to factionalism and many other reasons such as gatekeeping and manipulation of membership, especially towards conference and its list processes. There are also no visible efforts of recruiting new members into the organisation where in some cases this is done deliberately in order to ensure quorum is reached during meetings of the organisation,” he said.
Mabuyane said this was not an acceptable excuse for not recruiting new members into the organisation.
“The main reason why we struggle to have a quorum is that we have turned branches into a platform to elect delegates. Members are only called to meetings when there is a conference or when there are list processes. We don’t have active campaigning branches that lead popular campaigns in communities and hold meetings to discuss critical issues of service delivery,” Mabuyane said.
“This is one of the regions that has not been engaged in election work but rather preoccupied with regional conference. The PEC has informed us that there are no activities related to the ‘Thuma Mina’ campaign in the region,” Mabuyane said.
Mabuyane said factionalism, gatekeeping and a lack of membership recruitment drives were some of the concerns raised at the last national executive committee meeting where it discussed whether to hold conferences this year.
“It is clear that these factions and slates are developed for proximity to state resources for self-enrichment and have nothing to do with the interest of the people. Factions are led by gangsters,” he said.
He called on ANC members to stop peddling lies about each other on social media and start respecting the organisation.