ANC LEKGOTLA STATEMENT

The African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu-Natal held a two-day Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) Lekgotla from the 24 – 25 August 2012 at Howick’s Umngeni Indoor Sports Centre.

The aim of the Lekgotla was to consolidate the organizational programme for the current term of office (2012-2016). It was attended by all PEC members, ANC Leagues, ANC Regional Executive Committees (REC), the South African Communist Party (SACP), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (CONTRALESA), ANC Mayors, ANC whips and Speakers.

The lekgotla was preceded by one day normal Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) meeting held on 24 August 2012. The PEC in the normal session among other things thoroughly deliberated on what happened at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in the North West Province.

The PEC believes that the incident could have been avoided through proper engagement between the unions and the management of the mine. The ANC commends President Jacob Zuma for cutting short his trip to a SADC meeting in Maputo to return home to address the situation at the Lonmin mine following the massacre.

The Lekgotla received a political overview presented by the Provincial Chairperson, Cde Zweli Mkhize which clearly outlined what the ANC led provincial government and municipalities have achieved. The overview also highlighted challenges that the departments and municipalities still face and the strategies the ANC wants to employ to accelerate service delivery.

After having made assessment and criticised ourselves where necessary, the Lekgotla then crafted an implementation plan for the ANC organisational programme. The programme is aimed at ensuring good governance in all departments and municipalities. We are doing this because we are committed to the eradication of poverty and working with other formations, we will continue trying to make sure that our people’s lives are improved.

On Service Delivery

The Lekgotla noted that maladministration and corruption hinder service delivery. This affects the ANC’s goals of providing basic needs and the creation of jobs. The ANC calls on all government departments to ensure that they deal with wasteful expenditure and corruption which compromises service delivery.
The Lekgotla urges the cooperative governance and treasury departments to ensure that municipalities are assisted to achieve clean audits by 2014.  They must also be assisted to provide quality service to our people.

It is pleasing that of the 13 municipalities that received clean audits, five are in KwaZulu-Natal and the majority of municipalities that received unqualified audits are also in the province.

This is a sign of positive financial management and good governance and government. The ANC calls on government to immediately arrest the concerning trend of irregular expenditure which seems to be on the rise in some of our municipalities.

On Education and Health

Education and health are most critical sectors in ensuring a vibrant economy. They also rank amongst sectors that are highly labour‐intensive. During the Lekgotla, delegates noted that the programme of training our doctors in Cuba has been very successful and felt that the two countries should work together in building and running a medical school in South Africa. This will ensure that South Africa produces more doctors. This will help to curb costs of training doctors.

To ensure that the schools function properly, the ANC leaders will visit schools which are affected by social ills such as drugs and teenage pregnancies. The visits will also enable leaders of our movement to detect problems in schools while they are still in embryonic stages.

This year, the Government started piloting the National Health Insurance (NHI) in three districts in KwaZulu-Natal. The ANC will mobilize its structures for maximum participation in this programme.

On Political Killings

The ANC is concerned with what seems to be a systematic campaign to eliminate our councillors to reverse the gains of democracy in the province. The lekgotla condemned all the politically related deaths and called on our people to volunteer information that will help the law enforcement agencies.

On Women and Children Abuse

The ANC has noted with concern the upsurge in the number of rape cases, especially those that involve elderly women and children. The ANC will soon embark on massive campaigns to mobilise the society to fight against the abuse of women and children. We have organised a huge march which will focus on women and child abuse, human trafficking and political assassinations. The ANC calls on all people of KwaZulu-Natal to continue protecting our senior citizens.

On Minority Groups

As a movement that discourages the polarization of the society along the racial lines, the ANC strongly believes that winning the support of Indian, Coloured and Whites communities in the province is fundamentally important. The role played by leaders from these minority groups during the liberation struggle was huge and they continued to contribute meaningfully to the ANC, society and government. The ANC will soon organise meetings with these communities to ensure that they participate fully in the ANC programmes and structures.

We want to ensure that we reach out to all communities through government or the ANC programme because we strongly believe that challenges cut across all communities. We call on our government to ensure that services are also prioritized in these areas.

The ANC will also soon embark on a huge “know your neighbour campaign” which will help communities to deal with social ills such as drugs in a coordinated manner.  We will re-activate our branches to take a lead on issues that affect our people by playing a leading role in civil society and community development structures.

On The National Conference

As we approach the national ANC conference, we have no doubt that all processes leading up to the conference will proceed smoothly in KwaZulu-Natal. This includes the process of auditing branches, nominating of delegates, and nomination candidates for all national executive committee positions which will start in October this year.
We believe all processes will go smoothly because the ANC is united in KwaZulu-Natal and we also we have a very strong, cohesive and vibrant alliance that continually debates issues honestly and follows the proper internal processes of our movement when engaging. In this regards, we are ready to make contribution towards making the 53rd national conference a historical conference that will contribute in taking South Africa to a highest level.