/ 18 March 2007

ANC national executive rejects report on hoax emails

The African National Congress (ANC) on Saturday rejected the conclusions of a task-team report on the hoax email saga.

This was after the national executive committee (NEC) had examined both the findings and recommendations of the task team on technical issues pertaining to the alleged emails, as well as organisational and political questions arising from the matter.

“Noting the limitations in the technical capacity of the task team and some flaws in its approach, the conclusions of the report were not accepted,” read a statement following a weekend NEC meeting at Ekurhuleni.

There was nothing in the report that persuaded the NEC to depart from its earlier resolutions on this matter, including, among others, that none of its members was involved in the production of these emails, and its expression of confidence in the office of the Inspector General of Intelligence.

Political preparation

The NEC meeting focused primarily on the political preparations for the ANC’s 52nd national conference, which will take place in Polokwane, Limpopo, in December.

“The conference will adopt a range of resolutions that must give our movement clear strategic direction for the remaining years of the second decade of freedom,” the statement said.

To initiate and encourage extensive debate, the NEC will be distributing a number of policy discussion documents within the coming week.

These documents will relate to matters including economic and social transformation, the legislatures and governance, transformation of the judicial system, peace and stability, transformation of the media, and international relations.

One document will cover the “RDP of the soul”, the NEC said, reviewing the “problems of a spiritual and moral nature that have emerged in the era of liberation, and sets out an approach to the ‘reconstruction and development’ of our nation’s soul”.