Moments after the ANC’s Eastern Cape bosses announced they had disbanded the party’s Nelson Mandela Bay leadership structure, the group was gearing up for a huge fight to challenge the decision to axe it.
It plans to appeal against the decision with the ruling party’s highest decision-making body between conferences – the national executive committee (NEC).
The ANC’s Bay regional secretary, Themba Xathula, described the move by the provincial executive committee (PEC) to disband it as a means to settle political scores and a ploy to bring back the old crop of leaders who lost out to the new leadership at the regional conference last year.
Xathula also accused the PEC of not providing the regional leadership with the necessary support to help attract voters and increase the ANC’s membership in the Bay.
The PEC, at a meeting on Monday night, decided to disband three regional executive committees in the province – the Bay, OR Tambo and Joe Gqabi regions.
Detailing the reasons for the decision, ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi said in a statement that the three had failed three consecutive branch audits to meet the 70% threshold of branches in good standing to hold a regional general council and elect a regional chair.
“The PEC meeting received a detailed report of the various PWC [provincial working committee] visits to the Nelson Mandela [Bay] region.
“The report detailed the challenges facing the organisation in the region,” he said.
“In the main, the report revealed that the region for three consecutive branch audits has not been able to meet the 70% threshold of branches in good standing.
“The region was unable to convene a duly constituted regional general council to fill the vacant position of the regional chairperson due to its failure to meet the 70% threshold of branches in good standing.”
A regional elective conference held in early 2017 saw ANC councillor Andile Lungisa emerge as chair. He was instructed later to step down as he also served in a higher structure at the time – the PEC.
Since then, the party has not managed to hold a general council to elect a new chair.
“The report also detailed a significant decline of membership in the region as per the most recent membership audit,” Ngcukayitobi said.
“Elections work in the region has been moving at a snail’s pace and with very few of the Nelson Mandela REC members actively participating in elections work.
“The PEC [noted] that a considerable amount of support has been given to the Nelson Mandela REC but this has not yielded any results and the situation in the region is not getting better.
“The PEC, in this regard, cautiously resolved to dissolve the Nelson Mandela REC and establish the regional task team that will co-ordinate the work of the organisation and take the region to its regional conference post the 2019 general elections.”
The task team will be announced at a later stage.
The OR Tambo and Joe Gqabi regions were dissolved after they failed to meet the August 31 deadline to convene regional conferences.
The decision by the provincial bosses comes less than two months after the ANC in the Bay managed to claw its way back into power by forming a coalition with the UDM, AIC and United Front.
The leadership instability comes just months before the general elections as the ANC attempts to rebrand itself as a party that is united and serious about service delivery and rooting out corruption.
Xathula said that while he was at the PEC meeting where the decision was taken to axe the structure, branches and the REC were not formally informed before the decision was communicated to the media.
As far as he was concerned, he was still the ANC’s regional secretary.
Following the provincial working committee’s visit to the Bay last week, a report detailing the downfall of the region was circulated on social media platforms.
However, it did not say who the author was.
Contacted by The Herald at the time, Ngcukayitobi denied any knowledge of the report.
However, Xathula said the same report had been used to outline the reasons for the REC’s disbandment on Monday night, stressing that there was thus a predetermined decision to oust it.
According to the report, the ANC regional leadership runs the regional office, Florence Matomela House in Govan Mbeki Avenue, in an autocratic style and uses security staff to intimidate anyone with opposing views.
The report details further how the party’s membership in the metro has dropped drastically from about 11,000 to between 6,000 and 7,000 recently.
Also cited among the reasons for the disbandment, is the REC’s failure to remove Lungisa from the mayoral committee.
Lungisa has said that he has written to the NEC to challenge the decision that he step down while he concludes the appeal against his conviction and sentence for assaulting DA councillor Rano Kayser.
Xathula said the reasons to disband the leadership were unjust.
“We intend to appeal [against] the decision.
“We will be putting an objection on the content of the report as there are things that are not reflective of what is taking place in Nelson Mandela Bay,” he said.
“As a disciplined member, I have to go through some other channels to contest the report, which I will prepare and respond to.”
Xathula said the report claimed that no work had been done by the structure in the metro. “Post regional and national conferences we started rebuilding the organisation.
“We had the municipality stolen in front of our eyes and we dealt with the DA-led coalition and now the ANC is back reclaiming the lost ground from the 2016 local government elections.”
Xathula said when the leadership took over as the REC in March 2017, it increased membership figures to more than 10,000.
He said the branch membership audit took place on a weekend when many members were not able to attend.
The auditors had left before completing the audit and said they would be back, which they had failed to do.
He said a list was being circulated purporting to be the proposed task team members.
The list is made up of members who were part of the previous REC that was disbanded by former president Jacob Zuma in 2015.
The list mentions ANC MPL Tony Duba as the possible regional task team convener.
He denied he was ever approached for the position.
Duba contested the regional chairmanship against Lungisa in 2017 and lost.
Attempts to reach Ngcukayitobi for comment on Xathula’s allegations were unsuccessful.- Additional reporting by Nomazima Nkosi