Some ANC councillors in Nelson Mandela Bay are incapable, undisciplined and compromised, so the party depends on numbers in council — rather than political debate — to push decisions through.
This was the shocking admission from newly elected regional secretary Siphiwo Tshaka, who said the party needed to strengthen its capacity to ensure it always provided political leadership in the council.
Tshaka said to strengthen its capacity, the party required the ANC caucus to make time to engage on council matters and, where necessary, establish study groups on various aspects of the municipal key performance areas.
His admission formed part of his organisational report adopted at the region’s elective conference at Nelson Mandela University this weekend.
In the council, the ANC and DA each hold 48 seats.
The ANC wrested control from a DA-led coalition in 2023 and now heads an eight-party governing alliance with the EFF, NA, DOP, PAC, AIC, AIM and UDM.
Tshaka said the ANC was routinely outmanoeuvred in council debates and warned that the party must urgently strengthen the capacity of its deployees.
“The ANC is always on the back foot of debating substantively and is always forced to use its majority without any substantive political argument on matters before the council,” he said.
“That is not how the ANC should be winning debates in council.”
Reflecting on the state of the municipality and the calibre of its councillors, Tshaka said the ANC had only managed to reclaim power by stitching together a coalition with other parties.
“Since the undesirable landscape, the ANC had to mitigate a bigger risk of an existential crisis given the fact that the movement was never ready to govern with other parties whose political orientation is different to that of the ANC.
“It should be noted that the biggest risk we sometimes face as the ANC is the erosion of political discipline in the cadreship deployed by the ANC in positions of responsibility in the municipality.
“This perverse erosion of political discipline is largely driven by the desire of some of these ANC political deployees to protect officials who have been found on the wrong side of the law and those who have managed to use their administrative access to state resources to dispense patronage among the ANC deployees.”
Years of infighting, corruption scandals and paralysis had left the ANC in the city on its knees.
He warned that the party had become so divided and dysfunctional that it had been unable to convene basic meetings.
With a metro population of more than 1.3-million, the ANC has 6,769 members.
Tshaka, who served as the regional task team co-ordinator, wrote that the current leadership in the region was handed an organisation which experienced “naked corruption” and challenges since the 2009 national and provincial elections.
He said this was the result of members facing allegations of corruption within the organisation, and some were deployed in government.
In December 2021, Tshaka was elected regional deputy chair, alongside Babalwa Lobishe, who was elected chair.
She retained her seat over the weekend.
At the time, Luyolo Nqakula was elected secretary but voluntarily stepped aside in 2022 due to a criminal case opened against him.
Tshaka said the ANC had been crippled by major organisational weaknesses, an unstable council caucus and a breakdown in its relations with alliance structures.
“Almost all of these pressing and excruciating dynamics made it extremely difficult to run an organisation that is extremely divided, also by other interests in the province, national, patronage and business,” he wrote in his report.
Tshaka said the region had long grappled with deep-rooted dysfunction, making it extremely difficult to convene regional executive committee meetings and hold the elective conference within the required constitutional timelines.
The conference was postponed six times due to unresolved disputes with branches.
Touching on the state of branches in the region, Tshaka said out of 60, 50 were in good standing.
On Sunday, Lobishe said delegate numbers could not be compared with the last conference as a new formula was used.
While the membership figures are low compared to the city’s overall population, during the 2021 local government elections, the ANC secured 207,443 of the votes.
Delegates were frequently absent from the Goldfields Auditorium at Nelson Mandela University’s north campus over the weekend, a point repeatedly raised by conference officials.
Outside, ANC members mingled in clusters, chatting and playing loud music.
In his treasurer’s report, Luvuyo Mini said the organisation had endured its toughest financial term, weighed down by debt and the urgent need to fund repairs to the dilapidated Florence Matomela House — a challenge compounded as business leaders grew increasingly reluctant to support the ANC.
“When we lost leadership of the local government, many of our donors withdrew their support,” he said.
“However, we continued to work tirelessly with local businesses friendly to the ANC on different programmes of the movement.
“However, congress must note that there were malicious individuals across all structures who continued to source money for personal gain at the expense of the movement.
“Some donations never reached our bank account, and this tendency is counterrevolutionary and does not assist the struggle for national liberation.”
In Lobishe’s political report, tabled on Friday, she said the metro had not been left unscathed by the 30% US tariffs imposed on SA in August.
“The 30% US tariffs have the potential to destroy the auto and agricultural sectors in our region,” she said.
“One can imagine the devastation this will wreak upon the various impacted value chains and the workers of the region.
“Already, we have registered well-reported losses.
“The challenge that we face is not insignificant.”
The auto sector in the Bay contributes 64,000 direct jobs to the country’s economy and a 20% direct share of the metro’s GDP.
On Friday, The Herald reported that former Goodyear employees were reportedly being targeted by a syndicate preying on workers who received severance packages following the tyre manufacturer’s closure in August.
One suspect was arrested in connection with the robbery of an ex-worker in KwaNobuhle.
Addressing this at the conference, provincial ANC chair Oscar Mabuyane said police had a special investigative team looking at the Goodyear SA issue.
“Police are following leads and we hope for a quick breakthrough on the matter.”
The Herald