Scara Njadayi favourite for Sarah Baartman chair
Sarah Baartman ANC regional secretary Scara Njadayi is likely to be uncontested for the chair position when the region elects new leaders at the Port Alfred Civic Centre on Thursday.
The position was left vacant when Mlungisi Mvoko was elected as the ruling party's deputy provincial chair last October. The Daily Dispatch understands that all 54 branches in the region nominated Njadayi as chair.
The region received the goahead earlier this week to to have an elective conference between August 30 and 31.
The highly sought after position of secretary will see Johannes Hops of Sundays River Valley challenging Malibongwe Dayimani of Koukamma, if branch nominations are anything to go by.
For the regional treasurer position, Athenkosi Dunyiswa of Ndlambe, Nosiphiwo Williams from Blue Crane, Nonkqubela Peters and Nosicelo Xasa, are expected to go head-to-head for the position.
Deputy regional secretary Yandiswa Vara said delegates would also reflect on how municipalities in the region were performing.
One of the province’s worst performing local authority, Makana, falls within the same region. In the past few years residents in Makana municipality in Grahamstown had to deal with regular water cuts resulting from the ailing infrastructure. The Dispatch reported in May that finance minister Nhlanhla Nene listed Makana, Kouga and Ndlambe among 15 municipalities in the Eastern Cape that are in distress. “The commission on the state and governance will have to come up with concrete proposals to the plenary on how we can rescue the situation these municipalities find themselves in. The secretariat report will also shed some light on the matter of poor performance,” said Vara. ● Meanwhile, it was unclear on Tuesday whether the ANC’s Dr WB Rubusana region in Buffalo City Metro (BCM) would be allowed to elect leaders this weekend. The elective meeting was shelved last week after seven branches lodged disputes at the party’s national headquarters, Luthuli House.
The ANC Youth League in Rubusana announced last week that it wanted ANC’s suspended regional secretary Pumlani Mkolo to become chair. This week Unemployed Workers Union (Unewu) members announced that it would lobby for incumbent Xola Pakati to serve a second term, while BCM mayoral committee member Sindile Toni has been nominated by some branches for the top job.
Unewu president Jabu Ntusi said they would like Pakati to remain as chair “because under him, as unemployed people, the chairman was always willing to involve us in dealing with the unemployment crisis”.
“We currently have 46 people who got hired as part of the expanded public works programme; that’s relief for more than 40 poor families in and around Duncan Village, Mdantsane and King William’s Town,” said Ntusi on Tuesday.