The ANC’s top decision-making structure, the national working committee (NWC), has allegedly rejected an internal report that questions the role and powers of its top six officials.
The NWC had set up a subcommittee to determine the exact role, purpose and powers of the officials in relation to the NWC and to the national executive committee.
The top six officials are president Thabo Mbeki, deputy president Jacob Zuma, secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe, deputy secretary general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, treasurer Mendi Msimang and the national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota.
The decision to set up the sub-committee followed concerns within the NWC that the officials’ powers were ill-defined and that the manner in which they functioned might trespass on powers that actually reside within the NWC.
Currently, only the secretary general and the treasurer general are based full time at Luthuli House, but the six senior officials meet every Monday, while the NWC meets fortnightly.
The Mail & Guardian has received a summary of the report, but the ANC refused to comment on its findings. Instead, the party condemned its being leaked to the press. ANC spokesperson Tiyani Rikhotso said the party would not comment on a confidential ANC document that was never meant for public consumption.
The report’s conclusion was that although the officials were not part of the ANC constitutional structure, they had acquired a number of powers by default.
The report traces the origin of the six-member senior team to the creation of a president’s committee in exile in the early 1980s. Members of the president’s committee had powers to convene the NWC and the revolutionary council even if the president of the ANC was not available.
The reasoning was that the demands of the struggle often required a swift response that could not be delayed if the president was away from headquarters.
Once re-established inside the country, the ANC set up a political committee at headquarters to supervise the day-to-day work of the movement. The political committee was a suborgan of the NWC with no decision-making powers, but it was charged with regularly implementing the NWC’s day-to-day decisions. Both the president’s committee and the political committee fell into disuse after 1991.
But shortly after the election of the NWC in 1991, newly elected ANC president Nelson Mandela is said to have raised the issue of the need for a top leadership committee. A number of NWC members regarded this as an attempt to revive the president’s committee, which they felt was not suited to a legal movement.
In the absence of such a body, Mandela regularly convened meetings of the top six officials for consultation. According to the report, ‘during the two terms of Mandela’s presidency, the officials played the role of a committee of the most senior members of the NEC, making periodic recommendations to the NWC. We do not recall them being given any decision-making powers by the NWC or NEC.â€
The report says that ‘though the officials were not a constitutional structure, this body acquired a number of powers by default because of the tendency of NWC members to defer to Mandela’s judgement on a number of issues.
‘The officials thus began to exercise their discretion regarding a host of matters that should properly have been brought before the NWC/ NEC. Decisions that belonged to the NWC/NEC were being taken elsewhere and merely reported to the structures post facto.
‘By the time of the 1997 national conference, the officials and the powers that body had acquired over time had become institutionalised.
‘This was reinforced by the NWC itself regularly referring matters that are, properly speaking under its remit, to the officials for decision and recommendation. Through this process the officials accumulated a number of discretionary powers, which neither the ANC constitution nor the NEC had consciously granted them,†the document concludes.
But an ANC leader said that there was no official structure and that the ANC’s top six officials were forced to relate to each other in the course of their work.
‘Each elected official has their own power vested by the ANC constitution but there is a need for co-ordination when they each exercise their responsibilities. It would be a problem if they saw each other for the first time at the NWC. They should meet to agree on the agenda and to check how they are all doing in implementing NWC decisions. But they cannot make any binding decisions,†the leader said.
The M&G has learned that the document was rejected and that the status quo of the six officials will remain intact.