Two new brooms clean up North West

ON FEBRUARY 6, before the State of the Nation Address, important national events took place involving all three independent branches of the state, which focused on the North West province.

One event during the late morning was the reading of the High Court judgement on the dissolving of the ANC NW Provincial Executive Council (PEC), led by Supra Mahumapelo.

The High Court (HC) ruled against the ANC NEC in favour of those arguing that the dissolving of the PEC and the consequential appointment of a provincial task team was in contravention of the ANC’s own constitution.

This court was emphatic about procedural unfairness and therefore declared that the disbanding of the NW PEC and the establishment of the Provincial Task Team (PTT) respectively were unlawful, hence set aside, and that the PTT was interdicted to carry out any functions by the ANC constitution or instructions given by the ANC NEC, and the disbanded PEC was reinstated.

The HC has ruled in a voluntary political party matter and it reinforces our constitutional democracy of separation of powers. The independence of the judiciary is reconfirmed.

Depending on your political stance, you can either praise the HC judgment and the importance of an independent review of faulty constitutional procedures undertaken by the ANC NEC, or you can lament and challenge it.

The celebration from the Mahumapelo contingent in court has to be short lived, due to the announcement of an appeal against the judgement by the ANC NEC and what took place at the parliamentary precinct.

Now, compare the HC judgment on ANC constitutional procedures and mechanisms concerning the constitutional national government intervention into NW that was directly linked to the responsibilities of governance of the disbanded PEC under the leadership of Mahumapelo.

MPs were given a report-back under the leadership of its chairperson, Charl de Beer, on national government’s constitutional interventions into the provincial administration of NW, focusing on maladministration, irregularities, service-delivery system failures, intra-leadership and management conflicts, alleged fraud and corruption.

The system of provincial government and its administration has collapsed and the strong Cabinet intervention, led by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, brings clarity to the task at hand to restore the provincial administration.

The report by the executive branch on the progress of the interventions paints a picture of a province that has been in extreme distress, battered by blatant improprieties.

Dlamini Zuma’s interventions ought to fix service delivery; restore the integrity of financial accounting and management systems; pursue disciplinary and legal procedures; reclaim public monies; and restore proper costing and pricing of legitimate contracts.

The country must continue its fight against corruption.