Zuma meeting gets postponed
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma’s meeting with eThekwini branches to resolve long-standing hitches involving the regional conference hit a snag yesterday and was postponed indefinitely.
Both ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala confirmed the meeting with 103 branches had been postponed. They said this during a long meeting in Durban between the national executive committee and provincial executive committee, which was attended by Zuma.
“We are yet to set a date for another meeting with branches. We had long discussions on many issues which forced us to postpone the branch meeting in order to continue with the provincial executive and national executive meeting,” said Zikalala.
Unity was the main theme of yesterday’s discussions.
“The problem with the conference is just a symptom. We are looking at the health of the organisation. There were many issues we were discussing,” Mantashe said.
Sources who attended the meeting of branches at the Durban City Hall yesterday, which was later postponed, said Zuma had lectured them for an hour and a half on the ANC constitution and policies.
“We were then told that we could not be subjected to a late meeting because we must be hungry, since we had arrived at the city hall at 2pm but the meeting only started at 4pm.”
The party’s top six members had arrived at the city hall about 8am for the meeting with the provincial executive. All entrances were well barricaded and people had to go through scanners.
Sources said Zuma was not happy about problems facing the region.
Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, Mantashe, treasurerZweli Mkhize, chairwoman Baleka Mbete and deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte joined Zuma.
They had gathered to try to get to the bottom of the repeated failure to organise a successful regional conference in Durban as mayor James Nxumalo and former regional treasurer Zandile Gumede contested to chair the region.
Early this month the rerun was disrupted and called off as Gumede’s supporters demanded that ward 37 in Newlands West be included in the voting. The ward had been sidelined because delegates had been appointed by its leadership instead of through the normal branch meeting.
The conference has been postponed several times since late last year owing to chaotic branch meetings. When it was finally held in February, Nxumalo defeated Gumede by 14 votes, but Mantashe declared it null and void because three wards had taken part despite not qualifying.
ANC members from Port Shepstone picketed outside the city hall yesterday, demanding a rerun of their conference, which was held late last year.
They said complaints about the credentials of delegates had been ignored by the province.
They accused Mantashe of having ignored their letter of appeal in November.
However, Mantashe accused them of being ill-disciplined, trying to hijack yesterday’s meeting.
“This is not a beauty contest. We cannot be dealing with eThekwini problems and at the same time deal with the South Coast issues,” he said.