ANC NEC has 'done nothing' to honour renewal directives from conference: Mbeki

In December 2017 about 5,000 ANC delegates at the Nasrec conference agreed that the party must embark on an urgent organisational renewal to rid itself of corruption and unethical leadership, among other bad elements.

This renewal was fundamental to the very survival of the ANC which had lost the confidence of many South Africans because it was increasingly associated with corruption, nepotism, elitism, factionalism, abuse of state power, self-interest and arrogance. 

The party's renewal therefore was the priority and had to give a report on its progress at the national general council in 2020. 

However, almost five years later, its elected leadership, the national executive committee (NEC), has shown no signs of achieving this.

This drumbeat of alarm was raised by former president Thabo Mbeki when he delivered the Walter Sisulu memorial lecture on Saturday.

He said it was of the utmost importance that the ANC renew itself as this would mean ridding itself of corruption and corroded governance capacity.

More worrying was that the renewal and therefore survival of the ANC was not only important in the context of party members, but also as the country's dominant political formation it concerned South Africans in general.

According to Mbeki, the ANC was likely to remain the dominant party in the foreseeable future, meaning they would be in government for many years to come. Therefore, its renewal affected all South Africans.

However, the snail pace in driving this conference mandate was of great concern.

“But here is the deeply worrying reality in this regard: the ANC NEC has done nothing to honour both the 2017 conference directive and its own 2021 commitment,” Mbeki said.

“Obviously and naturally, the question arises: is the ANC national executive committee willing and able to discharge its responsibilities with regard to the ‘absolute and urgent priority’ of the renewal of the ANC?”

Though the ANC has made some inroads in dealing with corruption, albeit slow with some resistance internally, the party has been able to admit that its leadership and membership is riddled with corruption.

The party has also recently embarked on a cleanup campaign removing from its leadership those who are facing corruption criminal charges in court, while those facing allegations appear before its integrity commission.

This, however, is taking place just over a year before the ANC is expected to have its next national conference in 2022 and ahead of this year’s elections.

According to Mbeki, being associated with all these negatives — corruption, corrosion of governance capacity, weakening of state institutions, among others — poses a threat to the survival of the once glorious movement.

“The 2017 ANC national conference said the renewal of the ANC concerned ‘the survival of our great movement’! In other words, failure to effect that renewal would threaten the very survival of the organisation,” Mbeki said.

“Our political reality of the continued primacy of the ANC, which our electorate regularly elects as the national governing party, means that that very threat to the survival of the ANC simultaneously threatens our country and all 60m citizens with a virtually intractable general political-socio-economic general crisis.

“It cannot and must not be that if we, the ANC leadership, are trapped in an organisational death wish, SA at large acts in manner which allows that the macabre within the ANC visits immense disaster on our already suffering population and millions of others elsewhere in our region and continent.”

He said the ANC’s renewal remained a national imperative and “a prayer to the future that the ANC NEC will not be found wanting in this regard”.

Mbeki also said the ANC had to do an honest assessment on how much the quality of life of ordinary SA citizens has improved in the 27 years that the party has been in power.

“Of course this is not the moment for us to make such an assessment. However, we have to make some comments on this matter taking into account our country’s contemporary challenges,” Mbeki said.

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