Chaotic scenes of violence, allegedly intoxicated party members disrupting meetings and gatekeeping claims in a number of ANC branches in Buffalo City Metro in the buildup to the Dr WB Rubusana region’s elective conference have prompted provincial ANC leaders to take control.
Initially, branch general meetings (BGMs) and branch biennial general meetings (BBGMs) were organised by the party’s regional task team (RTT) led by two of the region’s top politicians, Princess Faku as a convener and Antonio Carels as a regional co-ordinator.
However, in the wake of some “unwarranted behaviours” and claims about how some branch meetings were conducted, the provincial ANC has now stripped the RTT of its powers to preside over such meetings.
This follows disputes from 26 of the metro’s 50 ANC branches on how their meetings have been conducted, according to a revised road map tabled during the provincial ANC’s Monday meeting.
The provincial ANC has now opted to deploy its provincial executive committee (PEC) members, reinforced by some members of the Bhisho legislature and party veterans, to oversee the meetings.
This was confirmed by the party’s communications, information and publicity committee chair, Balungile Sapo.
“Yes, there is such a decision. The PEC officials [top five] resolved recently that the deployment of deployees to BGMs and BBGMs will be done by the provincial secretary’s [Lulama Ngcukayitobi’s] office and PEC deployees who were reinforced by MPLs and some ANC veterans.
The intervention by the PEC officials follows an outcry by ANC members from the branches, and is due to the inability of the RTT to handle the task diligently, Sapo added.
“Cases of violence, deployees running away with packages, and use of alcohol by ANC branch members before meetings were reported, hence a swift intervention was made to ensure that we run incident-free and fair BGMs.”
She said even though the decision had been taken by the provincial ANC a few weeks back, it had not been endorsed by the PEC until its meeting on Monday.
Attempts to get comment from Faku and Carels were unsuccessful on Monday.
However, the takeover was confirmed by a number of party members.
In recent correspondence to the regional leadership, Ngcukayitobi said some “unwarranted behaviours” were displayed in the region.
Ngcukayitobi said the party had banned intoxicated party members from attending further branch meetings.
“To that effect, organising teams and PEC deployees will be furnished with substance detection material, to use on any member suspected to be under undue substance influence,” Ngcukayitobi wrote.
A number of violent incidents in ANC meetings, some leading to members being hospitalised, were reported in the region in recent weeks.
However, in a report before the PEC on Monday, the province said its interventions in the region “have seen some positive results, with few BGMs and BBGMs now being violent or having major issues”.
While the region was meant to sit for its elective conference in late May, it has been postponed numerous times.
According to the revised road map document discussed on Monday, the region has so far convened 48 BGMs, with 32 of the branches verified.
This has resulted in 22 branches qualifying and 10 being disqualified. A further 16 have not yet been verified.
Daily Dispatch
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