Commitment to combating corruption on alliance agenda

A two-day summit of the ruling party, its tripartite alliance partners and the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) in the province has led to a joint commitment to combat tendencies of greed, corruption, selfishness, crass materialism, factionalism and attempts of state capture by capital seeking to sow seeds of division that will ultimately weaken the movement.
Strict control measures ruling telecommunications prevailed at the start of the summit that commenced in Polokwane on Sunday and brought together 300 delegates from across the province for what was described as robust discussions. A mere five minutes afforded less than a handful of media members the opportunity to obtain visuals of African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa flanked on stage by ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe and ANC Provincial Chairperson Stan Mathabatha. Deliberations drew to a close on Monday afternoon.
In a statement to a media briefing on Tuesday, ANC Provincial Secretary Nocks Seabi referred to the summit agreeing to a monthly meeting of the Provincial Alliance Secretariat to share developments among structures and process matters of the alliance. It also agreed that the Provincial Political Council should meet every quarter to provide political oversight and direction, that a ten a side alliance meeting should meet every six months to discuss broader political programmes, that a provincial summit would be convened annually at the beginning of each year to receive reports and develop a common minimum alliance programme and that the alliance secretariat should develop a programme to enhance alliance at a regional level as a matter of extreme urgency.
With respect to the oiling of state machinery to improve the delivery of basic services, it was mentioned that the summit reaffirmed that the alliance would work together to ensure their people were meaningfully consulted, consistent with the legislative architecture of local government level and also to ensure that Local Government was better capacitated to deal with community issues. The summit also agreed to strengthening monitoring and evaluation in the Office of the Premier in order to improve and fast-track service delivery to their people.
At the same time the alliance summit affirmed the centrality of Sanco in championing community struggles for socio-economic development.
With regards to local government elections coming up, it was stated that the summit has resolved to embark upon joint and visible programmes to mobilise society to vote for the ANC as the only viable vehicle for community development and service delivery improvements.
The state of education in the province was simultaneously discussed, whereupon the summit noted that although the Education Department in the province had been declared as apex priority, it was beset by a number of challenges, and therefore called for an education summit to be convened to tackle the challenges which were prevalent in the education sector and develop a clear programme towards ultimate education transformation.

Story: YOLANDE NEL
>>observer.yolande@gmail.com

Featured photo: African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa on stage at the opening of the two-day summit with ANC Provincial Chairperson Stan Mathabatha.