The African National Congress Women’s League of Greater Johannesburg held a Regional Executive Committee meeting, last Saturday.
The aim of the meeting was to reflect on the outcomes of the November 1, local Government Elections, Eskom and Johannesburg water.
The REC held extensive discussions on the ANC candidate selections processes, towards Local Government Elections and the contributions of the ANCWL volunteers and election results.
The meeting celebrated the party’s win as it managed to win 87 wards and has four PR seats, resulting in a total of 91 council seats.
The league appreciated the role played by members of their organisation during the elections campaign, through the Green Mamba (Molo Makhelwane) campaign.
The leagues volunteers contributed extremely in the door to door campaign and the visibility campaigns in Johannesburg.
On list processes the ANCWL was disturbed by the manner in which the ward and PR candidate selection process was handled by the ANC.
The members highlighted the poor handling of nomination processes seen that Chairperson Ndivhuho Sekoba, Deputy Chairperson Pulani Mogotsi, Secretary Sheshile Nkwanyana, Deputy Secretary Mpesi Hadebe, Treasurer Thandi Marah contributed to the poor performance of the ANC during elections.
They noticed that women were victimised, insulted and threatened during BGMs, as a result a number of disputes on BGMs and community meetings were registered with the ANC and still remain unresolved.
The ANCWL members were concerned that the process of selection of the top two nominated ward councillor candidates did not take place as per guidelines.
They said this was a repetition of what happened during the 2016 local government elections, where the processes were manipulated to the loss of women and they condemned it.
On the matter of the Mayoral Candidate the league was concerned with the outcome of the nomination of three names for the City of Johannesburg Mayoral candidates.
They made reference to the letter by the Chairperson of the Electoral Committee, Cde Kgalema Motlanthe that dates from May 5 2021.
The letter stated that in the establishment of the Regional Interview and Vetting Panel, tasked with, amongst others.
The responsibility to interview all PR nominees that meet the cut off number of nominations for each municipality council in their region, order and balance lists according to the rules, and present and motivate these to the extended PEC.
The league notes that according to the guidelines for setting up the RIVP, the Regional Secretary formed part of the panel, and also oversaw the candidate nomination process on behalf of the ANC REC.
The inclusion of the Regional Secretary of the ANC Cde Dada Morero as a Mayoral Candidate nominee renders him as a referee and a player in the candidate selection process and is a blatant disregard of the will of branches and it was unfair.
The inclusion of Cde Morero also sent a message that the ANC does not have confidence in the comrades nominated through the list process.
Even though the ANC expects the people of Joburg to trust these comrades to represent them in Council.
The ANCWL is more concerned with the implications on the ANC should Cde Dada, based fulltime in the ANC Regional office, be successful in the bid to become Mayor of Joburg.
Having all ANC ROBs in Council would mean that the ANC Regional Office is left leaderless, at a critical time after the poor performance of the ANC during the local government elections.
This situation cannot be allowed and therefore the league is pleading with the ANC to reconsider the availability of Cde Dada Morero as a possible Mayoral Candidate.
Then Chairperson Ndivhuho Sekoba, Deputy Chairperson Pulani Mogotsi, Secretary Sheshile Nkwanyana, Deputy Secretary Mpesi Hadebe, Treasurer Thandi Marah in the instance that one of the four PR candidates is not available for Council, the ANCWL pleads with the ANC to follow the final list process which is the result of branch nominations.
On the Eskom matter the members reflected on the rolling electricity blackouts and the timing implemented by Eskom and the impact it had on the voter turnout on elections day.
The league was concerned with the impact of the recurring load-shedding, in particularly on women as they are the ones mostly affected.
They urged the soon to be constituted City of Joburg Council to ensure that a cordial solution is reached between the City and Eskom to see an end to load-shedding.
On Water the league noted that Rand Water will be implementing water-shedding in certain areas in Joburg, due to planned maintenance of the water infrastructure.
The league urged Joburg Water to ensure that the affected areas are supplied with water tankers to ensure that communities do not suffer the impact of the water shedding.
They also thanked residents of Johannesburg for voting for the ANC.
They urged the elected councillors to priorities service delivery for the improvement of the lives of the people of Joburg.
