Deputy Chairperson, Cde
NEC member Cde Ronald Lamola
PEC Deployees
Members of the Regional
Executive Committee
Leadership of the SACP,
COSATU and SANCO,
ANC Leagues
Deployed cardes
Abefundisi abaphakathi kwethu,
Delegates from branches
Comrades, allow me to extend our revolutionary greetings to you this evening on behalf of the Regional Executive Committee and our membership at large where we are virtually meeting for the ANC Chris Hani Special Regional Council.
We meet today at the backdrop of the overwhelming ANC victory in yesterday’s By-Elections. We extend a word of gratitude to all those who went out to cast their votes and appreciate the selfless efforts of our election machinery during these times of uncertainty.
We meet today in full swing of our preparations to commemorate the centenary of the Bullhoek massacre in Ntabelanga on Monday 24th, May 2021 and will be address by the State President His Excellency Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa accompanied by the EC Premier Honourable LO Mabuyane.
I am mentioning this milestone of our people’s fight for their land against white British settlers to remind us all the ANC commitment to expropriate land without compensation.
This special RGC is convened to communicate the NEC decisions during this prevailing state of the organisation where NEC discussions are leaked, squabbling party, deeply factionalised, deep seated mistrust and outright hatred among comrades, weakens our fight against corruption and the 54th National Conference resolution on “Step Aside” causing more strife to the ANC and society in general.
As Salvador Dali a Spanish painter once said “You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life”, as the ANC cleanse itself we have to traverse through this painful unavoidable path to give birth to unity and renewal as the two cannot coexist with factionalism and corruption.
Our National Conference gave our society a renewed sense of hope to “Renew the ANC as a leader of the society, rebuild it as a mass organ and place it firmly in the hands of the people as a tool for self-liberation”. We must continue to build an ANC rooted amongst the people.
As we are faced with the challenges of information overload on social and mass media, we need to sharpen our skills analyse form from content and be able to distil between subjective and objective factors.
The 54th National Conference instructed us to deepen our political understanding and restore the revolutionary integrity of our leadership and cadres. This was responding to the diminished capacity of our structures and the erosion of the values on which the movement was founded which is today prevalent.
We need “to develop cadres, schooled in our values and policies, with the capacities to be agents of change wherever they are deployed”. The ANC Strategy and Tactics document adopted by the 54th National Conference goes further.
It says: “For them to act as agents of change, ANC cadres need to be located in all [centres of social transformation], exercising leadership not by decree or through arrogance; but in terms of the logic of their ideas, through their organisational acumen and from exemplary conduct. Honesty, hard work, humility, ethics and respect for the people are some of the core attributes that they should evince.”
The tasks of our movement in this phase of our transition require cadres that have the ideological grounding, revolutionary morality and technical capabilities to function in a complex and evolving environment. They must appreciate the relationship between consciousness and conscience.
Our aim is to produce cadres who do not need to be compelled to do right, who would put the movement and the country above their own personal interests.
These need to be cadres who understand the fundamental values and principles of our movement, cadres who reject all forms of intolerance, intimidation, factionalism and corruption. We remind you of all these attributes as the current term of Local Government is nearing its end and the ANC would have to renew it democratic mandate and its social contract wit the people.
We welcome the date announced by the President and have started to prepare our election machinery for this battle ahead. We know that these are challenging times for our movement occasioned by uncertainty and vulnerability.
We must approach our election processes with calm, honesty, transparency, working together and openly discuss our choices as they must fulfil the aforementioned assertions.
Our people deserve the better from the ANC. Change is pain and taking the ANC to people is the right thing to do. We need ethical leaders that are beyond reproach in the ANC and government. Leadership that will serve the people first, be accountable, be compassionate with empathy, integrity and revolutionary discipline among others.
Comrades, we need to strengthen organisational democracy within the ANC in order to create an open environment for debate to share our different views guided by the organisational principles such as elected and collective leadership, consultation and mandates, criticism and self-criticism, responsible leadership, revolutionary discipline and democratic centralism. Democratic centralism means the majority on any structure take decisions, these decisions are binding on all members, even those members who did not support the decision.
So once a democratic process is completed, all members must abide by the decision. Decisions taken by higher structures are binding on all lower structures. Democratic centralism does not mean that there can be no debate in the ANC or that we cannot be critical once decisions have been made. ANC cadres should take up debates and criticism in a constructive manner within the structures of the movement.
We are gathered in this virtual platform and we encourage comrades to engage robustly for your questions and assertions to be clarified.
We need to sing from one hymn book after these engagements as we are preparing to go to the people. We wish to call upon all of you comrades in this region to selflessly contribute by volunteering to assist our senior citizens to register for the COVID-19 vaccination programme and ensure their safe vaccination.
We must Stay Safe, Wear Mask, Practice Social Distance, Wash our Hands and Avoid Crowded Places. We must mobilise our communities against Gender Based Violence that is so prevalent in our communities.
We must also work with all structures in our communities to reduce crime and gangsterism in our communities.
The ANC remains our collective inheritance and future, let us therefore today all commit to help heal the ANC, let us commit to building the ANC, let us renew the ANC to place it again at the hands of the people as an instrument to deliver the promise of a better life for all”
You are all welcome COMRADES!!!
Amandla!
