Klingon: Job Mokgoro is resisting the North West interim provincial committee’s call for him to step down as premier. (Tiro Ramatlhatse)
North West Premier Job Mokgoro is fully aware of the decision that he must resign from his position, said the interim provincial committee (IPC).
Sources in the province say Mokgoro is resisting the call for him to step down.
The committee’s coordinator, Hlomani Chauke, said in an interview with the Mail & Guardian, that it was not necessary to brief Mokgoro on the decision taken by the IPC because he was party to the negotiations.
The M&G previously reported that in June the national working committee instructed the interim provincial committee to hand over the names of three candidates to take over the premier’s position.
The matter was to have been tabled for approval at the last NEC meeting but the discussions by the ANC highest decision-making body were overridden by the recent attempt at an insurrection in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng shortly after former president Jacob Zuma’s arrest.
“When we take these decisions, he [Mokgoro] is fully aware of the decisions of the structure, so we do not need to go back and say we have taken this decision. He has been part of the structure, he understands, he knows the systems of the organisation, he has participated at the level of the IPC when the decision was taken on a number of these things that confront his government,” Chauke said.
ANC deputy secretary general Jesse Duarte has already received the names of three candidates the committee has recommended to take over Mokgoro’s position as premier.
Insiders say two of the people put forward are the province’s speaker, Susana Dantjie, and finance MEC Motlalepula Rosho.
Rosho, who is considered a favourite of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s supporters in the province, is said to be the leading candidate.
“Our interest is nothing else but to make sure that government implements what the ANC has fought and produced a manifesto to say this is what we are going to do for our people and if that government cannot do that, that government is not representing the views and aspiration of the ANC and our people, and that is where the tension comes in,” Chauke said.
The interim provincial committee has faced resistance from Supra Mahumapelo’’s supporters — led by Mokgoro — since it was appointed. It replaced the provincial task team that Luthuli House appointed when it dissolved Mahumapelo’s provincial executive committee. The interim provincial committee consists of members from both the PEC and the provincial task team.
Chauke said very little had changed in its strained relationship with Mokgoro.
Mokgoro was appointed to replace Mahumapelo as premier when the party dissolved the provincial executive committee and recalled him in 2018. Mahumapelo the suspended former North West ANC chairperson.
The interim provincial committee suspended Mokgoro’s ANC membership in December for allegedly voting with the Democratic Alliance in the legislature in defiance of the ANC leadership. A disciplinary process has started in this regard.
Briefing the media shortly after this, Duarte said ANC leaders agreed that “there is no point in maintaining dysfunctionality. We have to move on. Also, we are having discussions, and there is a system of evaluating even the provincial government, at the moment.”
The continued strife among ANC political leaders in the North West municipalities has led to the collapse of many. The provincial government recently announced that some of its municipalities are candidates for dissolution, among them Ditsobotla, Ratlou, Ramotshere Moiloa, Tswaing, Kgetleng and Naledi.
The national government placed the North West under section 100 intervention in 2018, which affected the administration of 11 departments.
Chauke said the relationship between the interim provincial committee and the premier is not healthy, which led to failure to coordinate municipalities.
Chauke said human settlements is one of the departments that has been lagging in delivering services.
But, said Chauke, with the intervention by the cooperative governance department, the administrators have appointed people to head up some departments and a director general to steer the ship.
During his political overview at this month’s NEC meeting, Ramaphosa suggested that the NEC and the national working committee introduce a process of interviewing mayoral candidates to identify strengths and weaknesses once a list of three candidates has been submitted. He also suggested that the party focus on three key positions — the mayor, the municipal manager and the chief financial officer — of each municipality the party governs. A mayor, municipal manager and financial officer should only be confirmed for appointment after the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs and the treasury have vetted them, Ramaphosa said.
Agreeing with the president, Chauke said: “It’s important that we don’t just deploy for the sake of it but [that] we deploy quality and capacity. The resistance we see in the North West is because of that failure. Some of them do not even know what the ANC stands for, some of them cannot read a budget. It’s a challenge and the intervention by the president is very important at the level of deployment that must happen across.”
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