Failing ministers could be in firing line
ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule warned that Luthuli House would push for the firing of cabinet ministers who deliberately delayed the implementation of the party’s conference resolutions in their departments.
Magashule was yesterday outlining the outcomes of the party’s four-day national executive committee meeting whose focus was the state of local government and the country’s ailing economy.
He said the party was evaluating what had been implemented by its deployees in terms of the ANC’s resolutions.
Some of the resolutions adopted by the ANC had seen several ANC leaders, some in government, being divided and publicly disagreeing on whether they needed to be implemented or not by government, including the nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank.
“We agree that there must be timelines in whatever we do and that is where the ANC comes in and monitors whether our deployees will actually implement within particular timelines and account. People are going to account at all levels and we said there will be consequence management. We can’t give you the year to do the following things and those things don’t happen and when the President and the ANC says minister so and so is not performing you then see it as a factional type of thing,” Magashule said.
Magashule said the NEC had endorsed the economic recovery plan which was released by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni and rejected by Cosatu and the SACP.
Cosatu described Mboweni’s plan as neo-liberal and offering no working solutions for the country’s economic growth and development challenges, as it encouraged privatisation of state assets and spared the private sector from taking responsibility or playing its part in terms of joint multi-sector resolutions.
Magashule said the governing party would meet with its alliance partners, who also attended the meeting, to try to address their concerns.
“They were part of the meeting but we have actually said we are going to have a political alliance council so that where there are areas of disagreement… because we had a real good four days where people were open and frank,” he said.
Magashule said the party was concerned about greedy local leaders who were destabilising local governments under the ANC by interfering in procurement processes.
“This, together with the rise of predatory business lobbies and forums, has an adverse impact on local government and ANC structures, creates instability in communities, poor performance on basic services, and damages the image of the ANC. The ANC municipality troika must not be involved in supply chain management and tenders,” Magashule said.
Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said government had not been able to maximise its impact over the years because its three spheres had been working in silos, including individual departments.
Dlamini-Zuma said government services would now be mainly implemented and focused at district level.
“This will also assist so that we can begin to look at our economy district by district and say in this district, what the economic potential is and how do we then ensure that potential stops being a potential but becomes a reality,” she said.