/ 11 January 2001

ANC gets down to some soul-searching

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday

LEADERSHIP and organisational weaknesses within the ANC, and the steady erosion of minority and youth support, will be high on the agenda when the partys top decision-makers gather for a four-day strategic meeting.

Also expected to be a major talking point will be how to deliver on promises of basic services made during recent local government elections and how to ensure elected officials are accountable.

“The meeting will look at the delivery of services and how to make sure that councillors serve the people and not themselves,” said one source before the meeting, which brings together the executive committee of South Africas ruling African National Congress (ANC).

The meeting is a sequel to a review started at an ANC national general council meeting in of Port Elizabeth last July.

Thabo Mbeki, president both of the ANC and of South Africa, will set the tone for the meeting with a keynote address.

Among the key tasks identified at the meeting in July 2000 were building and strengthening the ANC; transforming the state machinery to serve the cause of social change; and pursuing economic growth, development and redistribution in such a way as to improve the quality of life.

Other priorities will be evaluating the ANC’s communications strategy, which is seen to be weak, and implementation of the ANC’s policies in government, the source said.

The flagging ANC Women’s League and Youth League – criticised in a report by ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe – are also expected to come under the spotlight.

“Part of the work of the meeting will be looking at peace and security programmes, implementation of the ANC’s programme for 2001 with the ultimate objective of emanating with a programme that will take us to our national conference in 2002,” said ANC official Smuts Ngonyama.

He denied that a letter from ANC Women’s League President Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s to Deputy President Jacob Zuma asking him to heal a rift between herself and the president would be on the agenda. – AFP