The race for the premiership of the Eastern Cape has already begun as the African National Congress prepares to elect new office bearers in two weeks.
Deputy Minister of Finance Mandisi Mpahlwa is being touted as President Thabo Mbeki’s likely candidate for the position next year, hinting at a split between the party’s provincial leader and the premier.
The ANC has arrogated to Mbeki the right to appoint premiers. Aides say this prevents factionalism because he can appoint compromise candidates. Critics of the practice point out that it could also mean he can instal his own lieutenants. The strategy has worked well in Gauteng, but was less successful in the Free State.
Meanwhile the besieged Premier Makhenkesi Stofile is upset by Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi’s public remark last week that her team appointed to turn around delivery had found the ”province in shambles”.
The administrative failings are one reason Mbeki cites for a change of guard and he seems to have found his man.
Mpahlwa, who serves as an elected member of the ANC’s provincial executive committee, is likely to be pushed for the position of party chairperson by the OR Tambo region. But he is unlikely to garner enough support to challenge Stofile for the position. ANC insiders point out he might split the vote for Mluleki George, Stofile’s main challenger. Mpahlwa is close to Mbeki, who is unlikely to reappoint Stofile to the position.
The province’s ANC structures and government were under fire last year. The party’s provincial elections for office bearers were annulled and Stofile was forced to get rid of three of his MECs who had allegedly failed to deliver promised services. Two task teams are in the province — one from the national government, the other from the ANC’s national executive committee.
Dumisani Makhaye, a member of the ANC’s national executive committee who is a close Mbeki ally, has been based in the OR Tambo region for most of this year, said an ANC insider.
Makhaye is a member of the ANC’s national task team sent to the Eastern Cape to help the party’s provincial structures hold elections. He is the only national member working diligently on the problem, the insider said. The other members of the team have spent no time in the province this year. Provincial elections were scheduled to have been held last weekend, but have been postponed again.
Stofile said the political task team had not yet been able to assess if the party’s structures were ready for elections. Sources at Luthuli House, the ANC’s national headquarters in Johannesburg, said the election was cancelled because the province had asked for new dates.
Sources in the province say the left seems to be in a danger of splitting over the vote for the position of deputy chairperson. Enoch Godongwana, the incumbent, seems to have lost the support of communist members who favour Phumulo Masualle, the former MEC for roads and public works.
A former trade unionist, Godongwana is now the MEC for finance and endorses the government’s macroeconomic policy, which is regarded with suspicion by the communists. Masualle is the provincial chairperson of the South African Communist Party.
ANC insiders say the split will favour Thobile Mhlahlo, Luthuli House’s preferred candidate. Meanwhile, central government claims gains in cleaning up the province.
Fraser-Moleketi told a press briefing last Friday that the team had found loads of unprocessed files when they arrived in the province. They also found a backlog of payments, including pensions and salaries, particularly in the Department of Education.
The team also unearthed several thousand claims for social grants that had not been processed at the Department of Social Development. Fraser-Moleketi cited the example of one village where locals had made 12 000 applications in 2000. None had been processed.
But not everyone shares her views.
Stofile said Fraser-Moleketi’s remark that ”’the government was in shambles’ is unscientific. They were only dealing with four departments out of the 11, there is no way you can generalise.”
He said the province had invited the national team to ”clean out the human resource management” in the province, particularly in the departments of education and social development. ”We called them in to assist in cleaning up the data. ‘Shambles’ is a very strong term. If we asked for specifics, there will not be very many.” Stofile also denied Fraser-Moleketi’s claim that her team had discovered a backlog of 800 disciplinary cases.
”The cases were not the discovery of the team — it was not a revelation, but a confirmation of what we had already,” he told the Mail & Guardian, but the police had failed to act upon them. Stofile said the police were now pursuing the cases.
The team has succeeded in adding 300 000 people receiving social grants to the system in the past three months. The team hopes to add about 1,5-million cases by the end of the year, when its mandate expires.
Fraser-Moleketi said one department had not cooperated with her team. The M&G has learnt she was referring to the Department of Education. Civil service insiders say this lack of cooperation has persuaded a member of the task team handling the disciplinary cases to quit.
Fraser-Moleketi’s spokesperson, Thembela Khulu, has denied that any member of the team is quitting.
But all the heads of the departments and MECs cancelled their appointments with the M&G this week after Fraser-Moleketi’s remarks were published. The M&G was told that they did not wish to ”pre-empt” the progress report of the team to be presented to the Cabinet next week.
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