ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula. (Photo: Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images)
As journalists were ushered out of the hall at Birchwood Hotel following ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa’s closing address to the party’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting, secretary general Fikile Mbalula was asked to apologise.
Mbalula is said to have lambasted ministers following their presentations on government work ahead of the elections campaign season.
The Mail & Guardian understands that the NEC — the party’s highest decision-making body between conferences — was underwhelmed with the presentations by its deployees in Ramaphosa’s cabinet during the three-day event.
Insiders said cooperative governance and traditional affairs deputy minister Parks Tau, finance minister Enoch Godongwana, public enterprise minister Pravin Gordhan and water and sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu received a dressing down by the body, with transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga’s presentation being the only one to receive praise.
The NEC members who spoke to the M&G said Chikunga was more “detailed” in her presentation, giving the committee a “clear view” of the work undertaken by her department as well as projects which are underway in both rural and urban communities.
“She was the only one who outlined clearly what the government can do in the lead-up to elections. Ministers cannot come to the ANC unprepared. We are heading to elections. We need to give communities a clear outline of what has been done in the past five years. We need to get the ball rolling. We must be able to answer peoples’ questions,” one insider said.
In his closing address, Ramaphosa said the NEC applauded the progress made by the government in improving the passenger rail system, including the upgrading and rehabilitation of passenger rail infrastructure; signalling, bridges and train stations.
“Progress is also being made in improving the security of passenger trains and the recruitment of peace officers to prevent vandalism. These improvements will ensure affordable transportation for our citizens,” he said.
Tau’s report on the local government is said to have also lacked comprehension. One insider said the deputy minister only spoke about interventions made in 20 municipalities while the NEC wanted a deeper dive into all ANC-led municipalities.
“All the reports were not talking to what was needed. Only Chikunga’s report was accepted, the rest were told to come back, including Enoch,” one of the insiders said.
Ramaphosa said Godongwana’s presentation was on the fiscal position of the country and said the NEC was reassured that South Africa is not running out of money.
“The fiscal pressures that our country faces stem fundamentally an economic challenge of slow and jobless growth. Instilling discipline is as important as taking decisive steps to grow the economy,” Ramaphosa said.
“Fiscal discipline is not the same as imposing austerity measures that will undermine our developmental agenda. Accordingly, the NEC encourages government to continue with the implementation of structural reforms, in particular in the areas of energy and logistics.”
Godongwana has been on the ANC’s radar after the national treasury outlined various measures to Ramaphosa that may need to be taken to make room for big expenditure line items, such as a larger-than-budgeted-for public sector wage bill and extending the Covid-19 social relief grant.
Key among these alleged measures was to cut down the size of the cabinet. Other far less palatable measures include increasing value-added tax by 2% and closing various government programmes to raise the more than R40 billion needed to fund the grant.
According to the insiders, Mbalula was the most vocal of the party’s top seven officials and “fiercely” lashed out at the ministers while praising Chikunga.
“The officials told him to apologise and just after the media left the room he apologised to the ministers and the NEC,” one source said.
This is the third time Mbalula has had to clarify his statements against ANC leaders.
Following the ANC Women’s League conference, Mbalula quickly retracted his statement against Gordhan after saying the minister would be removed should he fail to perform.
Last week, Mbalula was forced to clarify another statement made against former president Thabo Mbeki during a manifesto review rally in KwaZulu-Natal.
“It was strange to see national working committee members and the top seven also questioning the report by the cabinet. Ordinarily these reports start there before they come to us,” the insider said.
“Why did they not question them during these briefings? If these reports needed to be altered and reworked, this should have been done at that level before coming to the NEC. It was as if some of them had never heard the presentations for the first time,” the insider said.