ANC chair calls for change in leadership
ANC PROVINCIAL chairperson, Dr Zamani Saul, has called for the country to be rescued from state capture and advocated for a change of leadership.
He said this during a special provincial general council that was held over the weekend in Kimberley.
He has already pronounced that the Northern Cape was backing Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to lead the party ahead of the national elective conference that will take place in December.
According to Saul, the movement had lost its moral compass.
“What South Africans expect is that the intellectuals of the ANC must be able to rescue the party from the present-day tribulations that confront us.”
Saul added that all nine discussion documents acknowledged that the ANC was “on the brink of a precipice”.
“The movement has lost its moral compass and has ceded the moral leadership of our country to forces which are hostile to our historic mission.”
He stated that the series of Gupta e-mail leaks and recent statements from the South African Council Churches (SACC) regarding the poor state of South Africa, including that the country was gravitating towards a Mafia state, had “battered the image” of the party.
“Almost every week there are leaks that implicate senior leaders of the ANC in the parasitic capitalist network of the Gupta family.
“In the face of such an assault on our movement, no self-respecting member or leader of the ANC can assume a position of neutrality. We are called upon to take a stand to defend our movement and leaders from capture.”
Saul added that the movement had to be saved from “degeneration and the tentacles of capture”.
“We have to further ask ourselves whether the current organisational structure of the ANC is adequate to strengthen its capacity? As the Northern Cape we must be a vessel of fresh and sometimes very controversial ideas on how to prosecute the revolution under the current political environment.”
Saul singled out the “mourners” who continued to reject the outcome of the provincial elective conference.
“The mourners derive their strength from a false belief that some post-conference miracle will happen that will lead to the nullification of the 8th provincial conference, and consequently the dissolution of this PEC. Based on this false belief they want to weaken this PEC and the ANC in the Province.”
He also discouraged “triumphalists” who were expecting the PEC to embark on factional cleansing TIME FOR CHANGE: (left) and to hunt down those that did not support the elected leadership.
“To the mourners, we want to say that the time for mourning is over, we must pick up the pieces and start the work of building our movement. We welcome those who feel that they want to fight and discredit this PEC. The PEC has adequate capacity to defend itself and the ANC in the Province.
Triumphalists
“To the triumphalists, we want to say that the time for self-adulation and over-excitement is over, the work of building the movement has started.”
Saul added that the nucleus of the party was established on “builders” who were committed to building a strong, vibrant and dynamic movement in the Northern Cape.
He, however, apologised for the shambles surrounding the provincial cabinet reshuffle and consequent reversal that saw ANC MPLs Gail Parker and Sandra Beukes serving only a month as MECs. They were reluctantly removed by the premier after orders were issued by the ANC mother body.
“This adventurist mishandling of the deployment process was the worst embarrassing episode in the post-1994 politics of the ANC in the Province. We hope and commit to never again expose our Province to such an embarrassment.”
He highlighted the need to restructure the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), where additional members should be reduced by half - from 80 to 40.
Saul also recommended that a nine-member revolutionary council be elected to replace the national working committee (NWC), consisting of a president, two deputy presidents (planning, monitoring and evaluation and international relations), secretary general, three deputy secretary generals (campaigns, elections and membership, cadre development and discipline inspection and communications Danie van der Lith
and battle of ideas), a national chairperson and Treasurer general.
The Province has proposed that the revolutionary council should have the powers to make decisions collectively with the office of the secretary general and report to the NEC on a quarterly basis.
“The proposal to do away with the current form of the NWC will sound laughable and odd to those who developed rigid attitudes to existing structures and systems. Taking into cognisance the challenges that the organisation is confronted with, renewal of the ANC requires odd thinking.”
Saul reasoned that provinces should serve as administrative centres.
“The reality of the situation is that provincial governments are fiscus guzzlers and go against our historic mission of a unitary state. The establishment of provincial governments was a compromise and we must revisit this matter.”