The ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay celebrated its 107th birthday with a cake-cutting ceremony at the regional headquarters on Tuesday ahead of its January 8th Statement in Durban on Saturday.
Regional task team convener and former mayor Nceba Faku led the celebrations alongside co-ordinator Babalwa Lobishe and former Bay mayor Ben Fihla at Florence Matomela House in Govan Mbeki Avenue.
This marked the first media briefing at Florence Matomela House with the task team after the regional headquarters was closed due to a disgruntled group of ANC branch members who did not recognise the interim leadership.
Speaking on Tuesday, Lobishe said fruitful discussions between the task team and different ANC clusters in the metro had taken place on Monday. “The discussions were solely on the election work and to assess their operation as branches,” Lobishe said.
“Comrades are keen on that work and those who are disgruntled, some are not even members of the ANC, but some who were disgruntled were part of the meetings we’ve had.
“The ANC is a broad church and there ought to be contradictions along the line but it is how we handle such occurrences. And we’ll continue engaging structures.”
She said the issues emanated from issues in council and not particularly the task team.
The ANC’s Eastern Cape provincial executive committee disbanded the Bay regional executive committee in October.
Speaking on the upcoming by-elections in wards 35 and 37, Faku said the ANC would win the by-elections in the Nelson Mandela Bay region as it belonged to the ANC.
In December, a Port Elizabeth High Court judge ruled that ward councillors Trevor Louw (ward 35) and Neville Higgins (ward 37) were no longer DA councillors – this after the party took the councillors, along with Victor Manyati, to court.
“Those wards were donated to the opposition parties and now that donation is going to be no more.
“We want our people back in the home of the African National Congress. That is going to demonstrate the commitment of this [task team] to regain the ANC ground in this metro,” Faku said.
He said the party did not yet have candidates to contest the by-elections but they would be popular individuals in the community who share the values of the ANC.