Oscar gives himself eight out of 10 for job as premier

Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane has given himself eight out of 10 for his performance as the leader of the provincial government.

Speaking on the sidelines of the ANC’s two-day lekgotla at the Boardwalk, Mabuyane said he had tried by all means to meet his targets despite being faced with Covid-19 and the increased effects of climate change, which caused flooding in large parts of the province.

“I’ll give myself an eight because yes, out of the targets we set for ourselves, we didn’t finish all of them.

“I couldn’t have calculated that we’d be hit by Covid-19 but we saved lives.

“In terms of the road network, we built roads but floods washed [some] away.

“Yes, the road network is not complete but we’re still working on those,” Mabuyane said.

Delivering his closing remarks at the lekgotla, Mabuyane, who is the ANC chair in the province, said some of the party’s lower structures were “terribly weak.”

“You can’t have 100 branch members and think the ANC is strong.

“The [strength], effectiveness and vibrancy of the ANC is when it exists from corner to corner and street by street. 

“We’ve got weak structures, so it’s not a good thing that regions must be run from the provincial office when there are elected structures in the regions.

“RECs [regional executive committees] are invited to shape up. You’ve got a responsibility to help the ANC strengthen its existence here.

“We need to galvanise branches to give all their energy to the election campaign,” he said.

As the ANC in the province fights to maintain its majority, Mabuyane touched on the 2014 split between its key ally Cosatu and the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa).

Numsa is the single biggest trade union in the country, with nearly 400,000 members.

“In almost all the highly industrialised areas, post the Cosatu split [with] Numsa, we always found it difficult to recover,” Mabuyane said.

“What you see in metros is not a mistake.

“That impact of Numsa is a reality that we must confront, engage and if possible, make sure Numsa doesn’t belong [to any other party].”

Out of a total of eight metropolitan municipalities in SA, the ANC has an outright majority in just one — the Buffalo City Metro.

Mabuyane said: “Numsa tried to start its party but it died. Members of Numsa are members of Numsa, but still belong in the ANC.

“We can say we’re fine without them but in this revolution, we’ll never be OK without them as long as we have a significant component of the working class ... because that working class depends on this motive force of the National Democratic Revolution.”

HeraldLIVE