All ANC conferences postponed for three months

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that all ANC conferences at regional and provincial levels will be postponed for the next three months.

This includes the ANC's much-anticipated mid-term policy review conference, the national general council (NGC), which will not sit as scheduled "until further notice". 

This follows a meeting of the ANC national working committee (NWC) on Monday at Irene, south of Pretoria, where the party briefed government deployees on the pandemic.

Ramaphosa announced that conferences - and branch general meetings in preparation for those conferences - will not be held until the decision is reviewed in three months' time.

An ANC branch is made up of no less than 100 people. Any meeting would, therefore, be in contravention with the government's decision to ban gatherings of over 100 people.

Several ANC provincial structures were due to hold their conferences in the next two months, including Mpumalanga and the North West, as well as no fewer than nine regions in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Ramaphosa said the decision did not mean that the ANC structure would die, as branches were encouraged to work with the government in spreading awareness about the virus in their respective communities. 

Speaking about the steps to fight the pandemic, he said: "It has an impact on the ANC because we were planning to have our BGMs [branch general meetings] and in most cases there are more than 100 people that attend.

"The NWC has agreed that all those should be suspended: BGMs, regional and provincial conferences are going to be suspended. All conferences, including the NGC, are also postponed until further notice - and the conference of the youth league," he said.

"At the same time, we are saying branch executive committees [BECs] must continue with their work. ANC must not sleep, ANC does not die. BECs must invigorate their work.

"We are now called upon to lead society in a variety of ways … [and] mobilise the public on the impact of coronavirus and change of behaviour."