ANC Youth League president Collen Malatji has criticised the ANC for not vetting its employees in the state, saying administrators who don't share the same vision as the ruling party are counter-progressive.
Malatji said the hiring of individuals who are not conscientised and employed only on the basis of qualifications ought to end.
“When you elect a ruling party, people expect services. We cannot employ people simply because they are the best performing in an interview. If they do not believe in the manifesto of the ruling party how will they be the driver of the agenda?”
The youth leader said the ruling party was sabotaged by its own systems.
“Politicians don’t implement, they take decisions and employ administrators to deal with it. That’s where the corruption happens, in supply chain offices. These officials come and try to corrupt the system, steal the biggest chunk in the municipalities and collapse government,” he said.
Malatji said once politicians allow officials to corrupt them, they lose the ability to do oversight on them.
“Most of our administration is led by people who are not ready to serve. When you work for government you are not employed, you are a public servant, you are required to go overboard to resolve the problems of the country and deliver services,” he said.
The youth league leader said it was reactive for opposition political parties to push back against cadre deployment, saying there is no political organisation that does not do it.
“Even those who are opposed to it are doing it where they govern. For example, they've employed a chief of staff with no matric but just a bodybuilding certificate in a municipality,” he said, taking a swipe at the DA.
Malatji said there was no party in the world that wants people in its office that do not drive its agenda.
“We are elected based on our manifesto. Now if you are deployed in our departments you are employed to implement our manifesto, we were given majority vote to do that. You cannot want to implement a DA manifesto in an ANC-led government.”
Despite the rigorous vetting Malatji is calling for, he explained that this need not translate to officials being card-carrying members of the ruling party.
“It does not have to be an ANC membership, we just need to understand that you are conscientised enough to understand the agenda. You don’t have to be an active ANC member, you just need to share the same vision and know what we are driving, understand nation building and our programmes.
“We just don’t need individuals occupying these strategic positions meanwhile internally they are contesting ANC policy positions.”
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