ANC risks losing more municipalities

22 January 2017 - 02:00 By THANDUXOLO JIKA and OLEBOGENG MOLATLHWA
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A file photo of the ANC flag.
A file photo of the ANC flag.
Image: Stephanie de Sakutin

The ANC could lose the last of Gauteng's big municipalities in a row over an agreement to redraw provincial boundaries.

The African Independent Congress (AIC) is threatening to pull out of a coalition that allows the ANC to control Ekurhuleni in Gauteng and Rustenburg in North West - and believes top ANC leaders were dishonest from the outset when they promised to consider a demand for the incorporation of Matatiele into KwaZulu-Natal.

AIC president Mandla Galo said this week that his party had never trusted ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize and Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe to deliver on their promise.

If the ANC loses Ekurhuleni, opposition chances of winning Gauteng in the 2019 election will be strengthened.

Galo said on Friday that the AIC had handed power to the ANC after "they begged us to trust them". But the ANC had repeatedly postponed meetings to discuss the return of Matatiele to KwaZulu-Natal.

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During negotiations on August 4 the AIC had told Mantashe, Mkhize and Radebe it did not trust them: "They might only be trying to use us to enter into a coalition.

"But they begged us to trust them and we gave them the benefit of the doubt.

"What really broke our spirits is when they told us they were busy with January 8 [ANC anniversary preparations], which meant that they were not serious."

It will not be easy for the ANC to meet the AIC's condition, because a lengthy parliamentary process would be required to redraw the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape boundaries. And if Matatiele were reincorporated in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape provincial government would lose a portion of its budget allocation.

But Galo argued that the ANC did not need a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly to change the boundaries - this could be done through the National Council of Provinces, with the support of six provinces.

He said the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs "should draft a bill to be referred to the affected provinces".

"Then this should go to the National Assembly [as a formality] ... This is similar to how the Khutsong matter was handled."

Mantashe said the matter would be discussed on Tuesday. "I am not going to talk about that in the media. I am not going to do that and say, before I have had a meeting, this is what we are going to do or what we are going to say.

"If they [the AIC] want to let the whole world know that Matatiele is their bottom line, we don't have a bottom line."

At a meeting with senior journalists earlier in the week, Mantashe intimated that the AIC's demand might not find favour with the ANC. He had warned AIC leaders that acceding to their demands would "open the floodgates", with other communities pressing their demarcation grievances.

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