The beleaguered township of Khutsong is expected to get its wish to be returned to Gauteng province when the ANC and the SACP meet community leaders this weekend.
The ANC has confirmed that a summit will take place, but says there is no decision yet on what will become of the Merafong municipality.
Khutsong was plunged into chaos three years ago when Parliament passed the Twelfth Amendment Bill, which re-demarcated the area from Gauteng into North West province.
The township has been ungovernable since, with all councillors forced out of their homes and chased from the township and public property burned.
The residents have been pinning their hopes on the new leadership of the ANC under Jacob Zuma to redress what they view as President Thabo Mbeki’s forced removal.
Attempts to change the decision legally were stymied when the Constitutional Court ruled that there had to be a political solution to the problem.
An agreement would allow normality to return to a township where, effectively, there has been no schooling for two years and where elections could be disrupted next year if the matter is unresolved.
In protest against the ANC less than 1% of residents voted in the local government elections in 2006.
ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said it was not a foregone conclusion that the summit would decide to re-incorporate Khutsong into Gauteng.
”I can’t pre-empt processes. We are going to a meeting. If I must announce the outcome of the meeting before, why have a meeting? In that meeting there will be delegates from the North West, there will be delegates from Gauteng. There is a discussion because clearly the court outcome is that we must find a political solution and we must find that political solution. That cannot be invented at the centre, you must involve those people,” Mantashe said.
The summit will be attended by provincial and national ANC and SACP delegates, as well as by the leaders of the Merafong Demarcation Forum.
The Mail & Guardian understands that ANC and SACP leaders from Gauteng will push for the return to Gauteng. North West delegates are expected to agree that Khutsong goes back to Gauteng, while other parts of the Merafong municipality, such as Fochville town and Wedela township, remain in the North West.
But breaking up the municipality in this way could be a lengthy and complicated process that might not be completed before next year’s elections. ANC Gauteng spokesperson Nkenke Kekana said the ANC regarded South Africa as one country but it was willing to discuss the matter. When the decision to do away with cross boundary municipalities was taken and Merafong was placed in North West in 2005, Gauteng ANC legislators opposed the move but were overruled by Luthuli House.
Any decision taken at the summit is expected to be tabled at the ANC’s national executive committee meeting next weekend.
Additional reporting by Matuma Letsoalo