ANC’s battle harms residents most

There is a power struggle within the ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay. OK, nothing new there. We have seen this movie play out before. The script is the same, but only the actors have changed. We have also seen what years — more than a decade — of infighting within the ANC in the Bay has done to the city. It all but destroyed the administration and made the metro an unattractive city to invest in, and those who suffered the most were the residents.

If one takes a look back at the events leading up to the disbandment of the regional executive committee — led by then chair Nceba Faku and later Chippa Ngcolomba — in 2014, the ANC was on a path of self-destruction.

There were protests almost weekly and fights among the ANC’s political bosses, and this spilt over into the administration.

It led to a revolving door of acting municipal managers and executive directors at City Hall, and ultimately service delivery suffered.

Sound familiar?

This newspaper reported on Tuesday on the latest infighting among ANC regional bosses and some of the council leaders.

Tensions have been simmering for months, but it has now escalated to the point where we are once again seeing a party tearing itself apart.

This has already affected the administration, where we are witnessing the chopping and changing of acting municipal managers.

What follows is something that residents of this city know all too well, which is the impact on services.

Granted, these events usually unfold in the run-up to regional, provincial and national conferences of the ANC.

But we cannot have a situation in which raging wars within the factions of the ANC — which, together with the AIC, United Front and Patriotic Alliance, rules this city — paralyse the work of government.

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that the residents of the Bay will come out unscathed from the ANC’s bruising battle with itself.

The party would do well to remember how it was punished at the polls for this very reason.