Mxolisi Dukwana. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G
Free State ANC chairperson Mxolisi Dukwana is expected to make sweeping changes in the executive council when he takes over as premier.
Dukwana was hand picked by the ANC’s top officials to take over as the new premier of the province following Sisi Ntombela’s resignation on Tuesday.
ANC insiders said that Dukwana has been given the go ahead by the ANC top brass to make all the changes he needs to “steer the ship in the right course”.
“He has been given all the protection he requires to make the changes needed for the province to start doing the work. There is an expectation that we must show that we are doing the work we are doing because we are on the verge of losing this province in 2024 and we cannot have this happen on our watch,” a provincial executive committee member told the Mail & Guardian.
In a letter seen by the M&G written by the party secretary general Fikile Mbalula, the ANC leader said that the national officials are of the view that Dukwana was the preferred ANC candidate for the position of premier of the Free State.
“Based on interviews, the national officials are of the view that all three candidates are of a very high calibre and have the potential to play meaningful roles as deployees in a
number of spheres of the government,” Mbalula wrote to the Free State provincial secretary Poleliso Motsoeneng.
He said that the officials made their decision on the basis of his experience and
the challenges the Free State is facing.
Dukwana will be sworn in as the provincial premier on Thursday. Earlier this month, the Mail & Guardian reported that Dukwana topped the list of candidates the province had submitted to the ANC officials for consideration to replace Ntombela.
Alongside Dukwana, provincial deputy secretary Dibolelo Mahlatsi and deputy chair Toto Makume have also emerged as preferred candidates for the job. The three were elected at the provincial conference in January. Dukwana received 346 votes for the chair position, while Ntombela garnered 303.
Dukwana previously held the position of convener of the interim structure appointed in May 2021 to run the province. In October that year, he was appointed member of the executive council for co-operative governance.
Ntombela was forced to resign after the newly elected provincial executive committee made a decision to recall her from the government.
In her resignation letter sent to the speaker of the Free State legislature, Zanele Sifuba, on Tuesday, Ntombela said she was resigning as premier and from her position in the legislature.
In another letter to Motsoeneng, Ntombela said she was ready to serve in any deployment the organisation deemed fit.
Dukwana is widely known for his rivalry with his former ally Ace Magashule. He testified at the Zondo commission on state capture that while he was the Free State economic development MEC, he attended a 2011 meeting at the Gupta home at which Rajesh ‘Tony’ Gupta revealed he delivered monthly cash payments of R1 million to Magashule and former president Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane.
He claimed to have been allegedly offered a R2 million sweetener in exchange for his signature on a government construction deal that would have gained the Gupta family control of a multibillion-rand investment.
The ANC Youth League in the province said that the Free State required an almost complete overhaul in terms of governance.
“It is important that the incoming leaders focus on government-renewal projects that should bring about radical and fundamental change in communities,” Youth League provincial secretary Mayibuye Bangani said.
Ntombela was also once an ally of former ANC secretary general Magashule.
The ANC in the Free State has been battling internal fighting, with those loyal to Magashule creating parallel structures.
But, on Tuesday, Mbalula sought to allay fears that the ANC in the province was in a state of crisis, saying the party was ready for any changes.
“We will, at an appropriate time, thank [Ntombela] for her service to the people of the Free State, and for her service to the people of this country, and for accepting the deployment of the ANC,” he said.
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