Faceless sources hurt ANC, says Mantashe

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe says the ruling party's national executive committee is concerned about the conduct of senior party leaders who leak information from official meetings to the media.

Speaking to journalists at the ANC's headquarters, Luthuli House, yesterday, Mantashe said senior leaders who leaked confidential information from national executive and national working committee meetings were "damning" and "hurting" the party.

"[The leaking of information] was actually criticised severely and we are beginning to appreciate it more politically than being irritated by it.

"Imagine that you are elected by the conference into the leadership of the ANC and you reduce yourself into a matter, called a 'source'.

"It is quite a serious indictment against leaders who allow themselves to be those matters because you are elected by conference, and then you become faceless as you become a source [for a newspaper]."

Mantashe said the executive committee was also concerned about the manner in which members and leaders of the ANC used "public platforms to attack the organisation".

He said the party's six top officials - himself, President Jacob Zuma, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, North West premier Thandi Modise, national chairman Baleka Mbete and treasurer-general Mathews Phosa - would look into how to deal with such conduct.

At a special national executive committee meeting in August, Zuma reportedly said factionalism and ill-discipline within the ruling party had reached a new low.

He warned that the ANC's leaders had reduced themselves to focusing on leadership squabbles instead of governance.

At the time, a fallout between Zuma and suspended ANC Youth League president Julius Malema had reached boiling point, with the youth league reportedly calling for Zuma to be replaced by Motlanthe, and for Mantashe to make way for its former president, Fikile Mbalula, at the ruling party's elective conference in Mangaung in December next year.

Mantashe said yesterday the disciplinary cases against youth league leaders were not discussed as they were being considered by the disciplinary committee of appeals.

On the nationalisation report, which is likely to form part of draft proposals to be discussed at the party's policy conference at Gallagher Estate in Midrand in June next year, Mantashe said: "The nationalisation research report's first draft has been tabled [to the national extensive committee]. We have sent it back on the basis of [the] style of writing. I am not a researcher or scholar, but we said to them don't just write a blended report, give case studies [on how nationalisation works in different countries], then at the end, give us options."