By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) will conclude its national conference on 5 and 6 January in a hybrid session after the party failed to finalise policy matters at Nasrec in December.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula briefed the media in Johannesburg on Tuesday, on the state of readiness for the governing party’s upcoming events.
The Imvelo Safari Lodge in Mangaung will be the main national venue where members of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) – the party’s highest decision-making body – will be based ahead of Sunday’s January 8 Statement that will be delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“Since the conference was adjourned, credentials remain unchanged and delegates are, therefore, requested to bring along their tags and they’ll be registered at the different venues across the country.
“Each venue will be linked to the national hub from where the proceedings will be directed,” said Mbalula.
The conference is expected to conclude with reports from commissions on strategy and tactics, organisational renewal, finances and sustainability as well as reports from commissions on governance and transformation, constitutional amendments and conference declarations.
Mbalula said logistics-related accreditations and the setup for the hybrid conference across provinces were at an advanced stage.
He said the conference will run over two days, starting from Thursday to Friday.
“We will conclude [the conference] within these two days. We might conclude in the early hours of the 6th, with the declaration and the closing address by the president. In between that, they will also be media briefings.”
The party will also hold its annual January 8 Statement celebrations this Sunday in Mangaung, Free State, to mark its 111th anniversary since its formation in 1912.
Mbalula said “all matters that were previously flagged in relation to the stadium infrastructure have since been cleared”.
Concerns about the facility were raised by the metro’s acting city manager Tebogo Motlashuping in a letter dated 21 December 2022.
Motlashuping warned that the northern part of the stadium “sunk after construction, toilet facilities were vandalised, there was no running water from the taps and no electrical or fire certificates were available”.
The stadium has a capacity of 15 000 and the ANC expects the stadium to be full to capacity.
The ANC will also host a golf day and a gala dinner on Saturday, ahead of its birthday celebrations on Sunday.
Meanwhile the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says Ramaphosa should use his next January 8 statement to unite the ANC and set the tone for resolving the mass social and economic problems plaguing the country.
The federation’s parliamentary representative, Matthew Parks, said Ramaphosa was faced with the mammoth task of ensuring that the ANC comes together. He said a divided ANC meant that the government would be dysfunctional and important policies would not be able to be filtered through.
“The ANC needs to focus on several key things, including uniting the ANC and dismantling the factions. Society is not going to be coherent if the ANC is not coherent, they need to focus on reconfiguring the alliance and they need to focus on rebuilding government,” Parks said.
Parks said the president also had to deal with matters of load shedding, unemployment, and issues of corruption and law enforcement in his January 8 statement. Parks said the president would also have to say something concerning the fixing of dysfunctional municipalities as well as restoring public confidence in the 111-year-old organisation.
The statement will set the tone for the year for ANC leaders and cadres, as well as the country and those involved in public service.