ANC snubs US, Western diplomats Business Report

THE ANC is set to go into its all-important national general council (NGC) today with a visibly poor state of readiness for some of its key policy discussions.

One such area is the critical discussion over the possible reduction of the number of provinces, which has raised questions about how this may weaken the discussions, or whether there is real political will to reduce the number of provinces for more effective governance.

The party’s 2012 national conference took a resolution to reform and reduce the number of provinces that currently make up this sphere of government.

The move would have wide- ranging consequences for the overall structure of government, including on the various powers of national, provincial and local government.

The reduction in provinces would also inevitably affect the ANC’s own party structures and dynamics, configuring provincial structures and the exercise of power and political patronage through the affected provincial governments.

The party’s 2012 national conference resolved to appoint a presidential review commission, which was supposed to report back to this year’s NGC on the implications of reducing the number of provinces.

It was also supposed to make proposals on, among other issues, the role of the provinces and the number the country should have, and determine their possible boundaries.

According to the Mangaung resolution of reducing the number of provinces, the presidential commission was supposed to present its report to this NGC, and the changes to the number of provinces would have to be implemented before the next general elections in 2019.

However, with the NGC due to start this morning, the presidential commission has never been appointed, and according to the party’s own discussion documents, the review is yet to begin.

“The presidential commission has not yet been appointed, hence the review process has not commenced. The NGC will receive progress updates on the review progress,” the party’s NGC discussion document on legislature and governance states.

The debate looks set to rely on a report of the ANC task team formed by the party’s NEC subcommittee on legislature and governance, which is expected to table a report on the matter.

But ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe yesterday sought to downplay the lack of readiness for some of its NGC discussions through the failure to follow up on the party’s conference resolutions.

According to Mantashe, the main purpose of the NGC was to assess whether its resolutions were being implemented.

“We’ll report on this matter to the NGC, not only on this issue (of the provinces) but on many others. That conference (Mangaung) gave us many directives. This is but one of them; there is quite a long list of those.

“When you say nothing has been done, you are fishing. The commission has not met, but work on the review of provinces has happened. For example, inside the ANC there is a task team that is looking into that issue.

“So we’ll give the details of what has happened to that matter to the national general council,” said Mantashe.

The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal is among those which have thrown their weight behind the implementation of the resolution to reduce the number of provinces.

Provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala told a media conference following the provincial structure’s provincial general council that they wanted the process of reducing the provinces to start in 2017, and be completed over 10 years.

The Western Cape ANC also expected the issue of provinces and the structure of municipalities to be on the agenda.