Eastern Cape ANC to screen candidates for top positions

All public representatives wanting to represent the ANC in executive positions will have to undergo interviews, the party’s Eastern Cape leaders have resolved.

This includes the positions of MECs, mayors, speakers, chief whips and members of mayoral committees.

It was one of the resolutions taken at a provincial executive committee meeting held over two days this week.

ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi said the provincial deployment committee, made up of members of the PEC and alliance partners, would screen the candidates.

It would consider names submitted by regional structures, with three contenders for each position, and interview them to select the best candidate.

This would apply to MECs too, who would be selected by the provincial leadership.

“The process we’ll follow is if there’s no mayor in a particular area, we’ll request that the region submit three names, and not relying on just what is on paper, we’ll request those three individuals to come and make submissions to the deployment committee.

“They will be assessed on the strength of their political understanding of the task at hand and experience and their academic know-how as well as the relevance of the individuals,” Ngcukayitobi said.

He said at the ANC’s 54th national conference in Nasrec in 2017, the party had adopted a 10-year cadre development programme which spoke to the need to train party members academically.

Ngcukayitobi said that this was to ensure ANC public representatives would undergo a transparent and fair selection process.

“This is why we’re not only looking at the politics but also looking at the academics,” he said.

Ngcukayitobi said members would not have to apply for any positions.

“If someone is selected to be a mayor [candidate], it means he was a councillor, and if someone will be a member of the executive, he would have been part of that collective,” Ngcukayitobi said.

ANC Nelson Mandela Bay regional task team co-ordinator Babalwa Lobishe said: “It will assist the organisation in many ways because it will point out the strongest candidate without looking at just a person who has served the organisation.

“What if you’ve served the organisation well but you don’t have people skills, or don’t relate well to the people or don’t even have an organisational approach?

“All these things will be considered in the process to see which is the best one, which was lacking for some time,” Lobishe said.

Sarah Baartman district chair Scara Njadayi said this decision had been practised in local government for a while.

Njadayi said the district welcomed the decision.

“There’s certain criteria that people need to pass now.

“We understand that there are no ready-made leaders and that some evolve out of the struggle for social transformation, but as a region we support this.

“Even who is the premier must pass this participation process and we don’t want deployments for the sake of deployments,” Njadayi said.