“ANC structures in disarray”

SACP's chief Blade Nzimande recently came out strongly in the SACP's newsletter stating that the ANC's structures on the ground were crumbling. Numsa writers Pinky Ramokoka, Jabu Hlabangwane and Leonard Thwala asked him to elaborate.

“Not all the ANC structures are weak,” Nzimande says, “but most of them are weak!” He said that during election time, structures function at their best. Structures have programmes of action, they have door-to-door campaigns, they call community meetings after hours to mobilise the community.

But after elections, structures distance themselves from the community. Programmes collapse. “There is a collision between the community, councillors and chiefs in the rural areas.”

Those in charge fail to address community issues, instead “we start to experience scandals within the municipality.”Municipal legislation says that “no municipal structure can outsource without consulting their communities”. But municipalities fail to adhere to this law.

Councillors not accountableCouncillors forget they are accountable to those that elected them. When councillors are elected they make an oath to the ANC “that they will call tri-monthly meetings with the community.

But that has never happened!”Alliance structures are demobilised he says. This has led to workers not being active in their communities. In the past if Samwu was on strike, the community would back up the strike with some action like boycotting.

To rebuild those weak structures he says will require full participation of the community to support the unions so as to rebuild the solidarity structures that we have lost and that used to unite the community.He said that trade union leadership should create a slot for the SACP leadership to address workers' general meetings so as to recruit members for the SACP.

Vuselelani izinhlaka ze-ANC kusho uNzimandeUNobhala-Jikelele we-SACP, uBlade Nzimande, usehlabe umkhosi wokuthi izinhlangano ezingamalungu ombimbi kudingeka zivuselele izinhlaka ze-ANC.

Uqhubeke wathi ngezikhathi zokhetho izinhlaka ziyaqina kodwa kuthi ngezinye izikhathi “amakhansela akhohlwe nokuthi kufuneka ahlale ebika njalo kulabo okuyibona abawakhetha”.

Ayakhohlwa nokubiza imihlangano njalo emuva kwezinyanga ezintathu. Uma kuneziteleka, imiphakathi ayibesekeli labo basebenzi abasuke besesitelekeni, ngenxa yokuthi alusekho ubumbano obelukhona nemiphakathi.

Nzimande sê ons moet ANC-strukture herbouBlade Nzimande, Sekretaris-Generaal van die SAKP, het ‘n beroep gedoen op alliansie-partye om ANC-strukture te herbou.

Hy sê dat strukture gedurende verkiesings sterk is, maar op ander tye “vergeet raadslede dat hulle verantwoordbaar is teenoor diegene wat hulle verkies het”, en hulle vergeet om driemaandelikse vergaderings te beroep.

Wanneer daar stakings is, ondersteun gemeenskappe nie stakende werkers nie omdat daar nie meer solidariteit in gemeenskappe is nie.

Ha re haheng botjha dibopeho tsa ANC ho rialo NzimandeMongodi kakaretso wa SACP, Blade Nzimande o entse boipiletso ho mekgatlo yohle ya selekane hore e hahe botjha dibopeho tsa ANC.

O itse ka nako ya dikgetho, dibopeho di matla empa ka dinako tse ding, “dikhanselara di a lebala hore di ikarabella ho bao ba ba kgethileng,” ba lebala le ho bitsa dikopano tsa hararo ka kgwedi.

Ha hpo na le diteraeke, baahi ba hloleha ho tshehetsa basebetsi ba seteraekileng hobane ho sa na moya wa kutlwelano le kopano baahing.

Extracts from what Blade Nzimande said in Umsebenzi Online Volume 7, No. 8, 21 May 2008:

"On ANC councillors"

"Whilst most of our councillors are doing great work in their service to our communities, a significant section of our ANC councillors have become so corrupt that their behaviour seriously threatens to undo the many gains we have made since our 1994 democratic breakthrough.

"For instance, why are housing allocations done by councillors instead of being collectively approved by our municipal councils and management? How come in some areas, councillors directly select people to be employed in municipal infrastructural projects?

"In many of our areas, such councillors are not accounting to the ward committees and municipal councils, and are thus not representing the interests of our people.

They have become nothing more than `indunas` in their wards, with many of the ward committees being nothing but `induna-controlled committees`. "We have to confront the fact that many such practices take place in ANC-controlled wards.

Some of our own councillors illegally take bribes and allocate `RDP houses` to undeserving people who are both South African and non-South African citizens! "These corrupt practices create fertile ground for intra-community conflict and xenophobia, exploited by reactionary and anti-ANC local elites bent on achieving their own narrow political goals.

What is to be done?

"(We must) frankly and honestly assess the state of our organisations, identifying some of the decay that was beginning to creep in, and begin a serious process of rebuilding our branch structures throughout the country.

"In rebuilding our organisations, it is important also to pose the question of what kind of community structures and organisations we want to foster in our communities.

For instance, is the task to rebuild SANCO or to build strong street committees as the new revolutionary nucleus for community organisation, or both?"Whichever way we answer this question, it is important to focus on the building of street committees as a new opportunity to organise and mobilise our communities to fight crime and for these also to be the new revolutionary nuclei around which to pursue our developmental agenda in the locality.

"It is also important that organisation of casual and other vulnerable workers is intensified. This must include a deliberate strategy to ensure that all workers from the region are organised into unions.

This will lay a stronger basis for fighting against those employers exploiting the vulnerability of those workers from the rest of our region, and will help to build working class solidarity in the workplace and beyond."

For the full text see www.sacp.org.za

Source

Numsa News