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Lifestyle audits for national executive committee members, a much smaller NEC and the curbing of the president’s powers in appointing members of his executive – these are some of the proposals that the Western Cape ANC is taking to the party’s national policy conference.
The province wants it to be obligatory for the president to “consult broadly” in the ANC before appointing or making changes to his executive and not “merely inform” as is currently the practice.
Earlier this year, three of the ANC’s top six leaders – Cyril Ramaphosa, Gwede Mantashe and Zweli Mkhize – claimed that Zuma presented them with a list of names that he was bringing into his national executive as the head of government and that they were not aware who drafted the list or where it was drafted.
The Western Cape also wants the ANC’s NEC to have powers to recall the president and any other underperforming public representative. The ANC has previously said its constitution was silent on how to remove a sitting president.
The Western Cape is proposing that the party halves its national executive committee from 80 to 40 members in a bid to enhance decision-making and accountability, and to fight patronage. Not more than 65% should be allowed to serve in Cabinet, proposes the province. It wants the rest of the NEC to be able to focus on building the party and not be tied up in government duties.
“The current NEC is too cumbersome and the national working committee is also very large,” said provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs, explaining the province’s proposal.
The province is also proposing lifestyle audits to be introduced for all elected ANC leaders, from the NEC members down to public representatives at local government. The proposal is for these lifestyle audits to be conducted by the party’s integrity commission, which would be elected at the national conference and given more powers.
“The ANC leadership in government has been repeatedly dogged by accusations of corruption in the media and allegations among comrades. This has eroded public trust and confidence in the integrity of our leaders to take decisions in the public interest and instead entrenched a perception that ANC leaders are more often in pursuit of ill-gotten gains.
“Transparency around how our leaders maintain their lifestyles is necessary to restore confidence in their moral uprightness and commitment to selfless service,” explained Jacobs.
The Western Cape ANC, which is the only one not in government, wants NEC members including Cabinet members and other government officials to be forced to take their children to government schools and to use public health services.
And if you were convicted by a court of law after 1994, you have no business holding a leadership position in the ANC. The province wants all those who were convicted of crimes post-1994 to be barred from contesting any ANC leadership position. This includes members who have been found to have broken their oath of office or if their actions have been declared unconstitutional.
On nuclear, the province also wants an accurate costing of all nuclear proposals and for this to be made public including costs of permanent storage of high level radioactive wastes and the costs for permanent storage of highly radioactive cores of decommissioned reactors.
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