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ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina says the party’s resolution to nationalise the South African Reserve Bank will be implemented, but the organisation needed to be given space to first work out the modalities of the decision.
Majodina was speaking to City Press on the sidelines of the swearing-in of two new members of Parliament last Thursday.
“While there is a resolution from the [ANC’s] national conference on the Reserve Bank, you have to be practical in terms of implementing that resolution. Nobody denies that there is a resolution, but when you are a party you don’t just close your eyes and implement something, there is a process.”
Majodina said the arrival of former Northern Cape speaker, Connie Seoposengwe, and ANC Youth league national executive member, Princess Faku, was a good start to women’s month.
Read: New chief whip Pemmy Majodina plans to sebenza all the way
The two new arrivals replaced Sibongile Besani - who has since replaced Zizi Kodwa as the head of presidency at Luthuli House - and former Buffalo City mayor Zukisa Faku, who had been convicted of fraud.
Last week also marked the end of the first term of the sixth Parliament with MPs now on recess for three weeks.
Majodina, whose appointment shocked many, said she was pleased with what had been achieved by Parliament in a short space of time.
The ANCs elective conference in 2017, held at Nasrec, had taken resolutions on two key economic questions, the expropriation of land without compensation and the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank.
The sixth Parliament has already established an ad hoc committee to guide the process of amending Section 25 of the Constitution to explicitly allow for land to be expropriated without compensation.
On the Reserve Bank – which the party had resolved should be nationalised – Majodina said that resolution has not been abandoned.
“There is no disagreement on the resolution, it will be implemented. It is just that we need to look at the modalities of it and that work is underway,” she said.
‘ANC women given serious responsibilities’
Faku told City Press she was proud to be joining the ANC caucus where young women had been given serious responsibilities.
“If you look at the composition of Parliament you will see that women have found expression, so there is much to celebrate in terms of the stance taken by the ANC in the sixth Parliament. Even in Cabinet women and young women have found expression, if you look at people like Bavelile Hlongwa and Khumbudzo Ntshaveni,” Faku said.
“So we haven’t achieved everything but this sixth Parliament is showing there is a transition that is underway. Young women are chairpersons and whips so we are moving in the right direction.”
Seoposengwe said the ANC had come a long way in its quest to achieve gender balance.
“There is space for women in the ANC when we look back at where we come from. We started with one third representation and it has been going up. A lot has to be done. We need to balance with the generation coming after us. We need to ensure that the young women who come into Parliament fight where they see gender parity not being taken seriously because the policies of the ANC must be taken seriously,” she said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet, appointed in late May this year, is also the first to have a 50/50 gender balance.
Meanwhile, Gauteng premier David Makhura finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place after the ANC’s last sitting of the national executive committee resolved that he needed to remove one male MEC and replace him with a woman in order to meet the party’s gender policy.
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