After having been postponed numerous times in 2025, the Buffalo City Metro-based Dr WB Rubusana ANC region is now scheduled to go to its much-anticipated elective conference in September.
In a meeting with provincial ANC leaders this week, it was agreed that the region, which had postponed its elections at least twice this year, will go for conference between September 5-7.
The region’s elective conference was initially scheduled for May, but had to be postponed amid incomplete branch general meetings (BGMs) and political school classes for the party membership, which had been declared a prerequisite for any region going to conference.
With its three-year term of office having lapsed in May, the regional executive committee (REC), elected in 2022, was then dissolved in late May, and replaced with a regional task team (RTT).
At the time, the ANC resolved that outgoing regional chair Princess Faku would lead the 25-member interim regional task team as regional convener, with regional secretary Antonio Carels as co-ordinator.
Their conference was scheduled again to sit between July 4 and 6, but again it was shelved at the eleventh hour, due to unresolved branch meeting disputes, problems with verification and other hurdles.
At the time it was reported that a long wait for a verification report from Luthuli House, the party’s national headquarters in Gauteng, and disputes lodged by dissatisfied branches, had derailed the region’s plans and forced it to put its eagerly-awaited elective conference on ice.
While Carels could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, the party’s communications, information and publicity chair and provincial executive committee (PEC) spokesperson, Balungile Sapo, confirmed a new date has been set for the BCM conference.
“The decision was taken in a meeting that was convened on Monday at Calata House between PEC officials, PEC deployees to the region and a full complement of the RTT,” she said.
Asked whether branch disputes had been dealt with, Sapo said there were still disputes being looked at.
“Yes, there are disputes that are in front of the provincial disputes resolution committee (PDRC) and the NDRC.
“These structures convene daily to consider appeals, not only for the Dr WB Rubusana region, but also other regions of the province,” Sapo said.
The Dr WB Rubusana region is divided along factional lines with one faction, known as Imvula or The Rain, said to be aligned to Carels, while the other faction, known as Ilanga or The Sun, said to be aligned to his once close ally, Faku.
Dr WB Rubusana would be the fifth provincial ANC region to go to conference this year, after Chris Hani, OR Tambo, Alfred Nzo and Joe Gqabi regions had sat theirs.
A number of chaotic ANC branch meetings in the Buffalo City Metro, meant to elect new branch leaders and nominate possible regional leaders ahead of the elective conference, are set for a rerun.
This after the branches successfully lodged disputes with the provincial ANC amid claims of irregularity on how their meetings were conducted.
While some regional leaders had been implicated by the provincial ANC probe into the chaos that took place, many other irregularities were highlighted in some branches as the reasons for them to rerun their BGMs.
In one instance, at a ward in Mdantsane, two unnamed Dr WB Rubusana RTT members, residing in the ward, were implicated by the province in the chaos that erupted at that branch meeting in May.
This was after they had been caught on video allegedly manipulating processes.
The provincial dispute resolution committee had since resolved to uphold the appeal and nullify outcomes of that May BGM, with the province directing that the branch meeting be reconvened.
This was according to confidential letters sent to affected branches by the party’s provincial secretary, Lulama Ngcukayitobi, recently.
However, a number of party insiders said on Wednesday that such reruns, as instructed by the province, were yet to take place.
In a revised road map to regional conferences document tabled during the party’s PEC meeting a few weeks ago, it was revealed that 26 of the metro’s 50 ANC branches had lodged appeals.
Of the 26 appeals, 11 were dealt with and finalised by the PDRC, while five more appeals were pending, 10 outstanding and six escalated to the party’s national dispute resolution committee (NDRC).
Daily Dispatch
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