Durban — Delegates attending the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal provincial elections, this weekend, have been warned to be wary of vote buying and the uncontrollable desire to accumulate wealth ahead of the conference should be discouraged.
The warning was issued in a joint statement by the SACP, Cosatu and SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu).
The alliance said delegates must emerge from the conference with leadership that will tirelessly work for the strength of the alliance across all regions.
The alliance said they remained concerned about many slates that have been circulating over the past few months, saying this was a clear indication of a lack of unity and to put it simply – “the lack of strong leadership in the province.” The alliance said such a situation should not have been allowed.
“We are left with a distinct impression that what we are seeing is an uncontrollable desire to accumulate wealth using the ANC as a vehicle.
“The ANC must guide against the tendency of individuals who want to access power at all costs.
“This has created conflict of interest, abuse of positions of authority and sliding to fraud and corruption,” says the statement.
The alliance further stated they have heard of allegations of widespread manipulation of procurement systems to favour certain factions ahead of the conference, adding that greed and scramble for resources have been observed where elected and deployed cadres lose focus on the programme of the ANC and spend time quarrelling amongst themselves as they compete for access to resources resulting in the paralysis of a structure of government or a constitutional structure.
Furthermore, the alliance stated that an unprincipled fight for positions and erosion of the culture of members electing its leaders has created characters referred to as ‘oNgikhetheni’ (elect me). The alliance said, “such people get driven by intense desire for the elected position and use money at all costs to win.”
Other issues raised by the alliance were the plight of civil servants.
The alliance expressed their concerns about the impact of economic challenges on workers and especially civil servants who are responsible for service delivery, saying most of their members, who are civil servants across all government departments, some in municipalities, are drowning in debt.
The alliance blamed this on “garnishee orders being deducted from their salaries each month”.
“In preparation for 2024 general elections the performance of the ANC, as a governing party here in the province during the term of office, which ends this weekend, was something that cannot be celebrated,” says the statement.
The alliance stated that they witnessed poor electoral performance which resulted in a 10% drop in the provincial elections and a 16% drop in municipal elections, saying for instance in 2014, the ANC recorded 65.31% in the provincial elections and 55.47% in 2019.
It said during the local government elections, the ANC recorded 57.48% in 2016 and scored a dismal 41.44% last November.
In 2016 the ANC had 995 council seats and this has been reduced to 742 having lost 253 seats.
The alliance believed that there was a need for leadership to take this province forward under the banner of the ANC.
“They called on delegates to also respond now to what is an often raised question of when is KwaZulu-Natal going to be ready for a woman as a leader?”
The alliance also expressed concern about the unsolved political murders in the province blaming the outgoing leadership for failing to ensure multi-party committee meetings involving leaders of political parties in order to ensure peace and stability in the province.
Taking a shot at Premier Sihle Zikalala after his reported public fist fight with former Ukhozi FM radio personality Ngizwe Mchunu during a maskandi event, the alliance stated that such skirmishes projected a terrible image of the province among the family of nations.
Daily News