Newly appointed ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu says the ruling party is keenly aware of the situation in the country and that it must take urgent action to address the challenges.
Bhengu was speaking to TimesLIVE Premium before President Cyril Ramaphosa's upcoming state of the nation address (Sona) in Cape Town on Thursday.
This will be Ramaphosa's seventh state of the nation address, with two delivered in 2019. The speech is expected to open parliament and get the administrative and political calendar going as the ruling party faces rising unhappiness over issues such as load-shedding, unemployment, corruption and service delivery.
Bhengu, says the party is serious about winning back society and that the internal conversations on self-reflection and circumspection that she is part of reflect this.
“It was visible in the conversations running up to the conference. It was addressed in the conference. Even the way that the delegates in the conference voted will give you a signal as to how intentional they are as ordinary members of the ANC.
“That indicates a sense of seriousness. We need to move with speed and we are expecting that the state of the nation address by the president will demonstrate this,” she said.
We need to ensure that those at the helm of municipal leadership are people who are fit for the job
— Mahlengi Bhengu, ANC spokesperson
Bhengu said in addition to understanding that there is a crisis in the country, one target area was service delivery, and the national executive committee has come up with a possible solution to address this.
“We will be putting out a performance monitoring and accountability framework on an urgent basis to have accountability on the part of those who have been elected, starting with NEC members who are going to be deployed not just in the provinces but in the regions and all the way down.
“We are going to be putting out various teams that are going to be linked to all the districts in the country, all the 157 or so municipalities, all our nine provinces and the various regions, and NEC members are going to be deployed for oversight.
“We are targeting about 42 municipalities that are in distress or called dysfunctional municipalities with a range of very urgent and practical measures to claw back, especially on service delivery — from collection of refuse to the road infrastructure, the things that we can fix immediately, running water, infrastructure and potholes.”
Fixing the issue of municipal leadership was of great concern, added Bhengu.
“We are going to make sure we don't have a huge number of vacancies that can’t be explained, and we need to ensure that those who are at the helm of municipal leadership are people fit for the job,” she said, citing that these are some of the clear instructions from the leadership of the party and that there was no time to lose momentum.
“Whoever falters on that will have to account through the performance monitoring and accountability system the national conference, the recent NEC and the lekgotla has emphasised.
“I am absolutely confident where that is concerned. We're very serious about winning back the ground.”
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