ANC 'comfortable' with provincial efforts

Rochelle de Kock

THE ANC in the Eastern Cape is "comfortable" with the progress it has made as the governing party in the province over the past four years, although it believes it could do more to speed up the process of land distribution.

Taking stock of the party's achievements and challenges under premier Noxolo Kiviet, the ANC spent the past three days at its provincial lekgotla at Mphwekweni Resort near Port Alfred, in preparation for this year's general election.

Provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said party members were impressed by Kiviet's report, which detailed the progress made by the various provincial departments.

"The lekgotla was about acknowledging the progress we've made with the eradication of mud schools, which we are really progressing on, and the improvement of our matric results.

"The ANC drew a line on corruption and said all corrupt practices must come to the fore," Mabuyane said.

"We have exceeded our job creation targets, although we believe we must unlock the bottlenecks and invest in the economy through [small, medium and micro enterprises] so that the burden is not only on government to create jobs."

Although he was happy that the ANC had made positive strides, Mabuyane said the party was battling to fight the scourge of crime, especially rape, domestic violence and suicides.

"We have regressed because people are killing each other and there're so many rapes; it's become worrying.

"Also, we believe more can be done to focus on the agriculture sector. The snail's pace of land distribution is hampering progress," he said. "The journey continues moving forward up until we have changed the lives of all for the better. We have taken concrete resolutions at the lekgotla to say, how do we move forward."