SACP Gauteng Welcomes The Outcomes of the ANC Provincial Conference and Calls for Investigation on Allegation of the Use of Money

27 June 2022

The South African Communist Party (SACP) in Gauteng welcomes the outcomes of the 14th Provincial Conference of our principal political ally, the African National Congress (ANC) in Gauteng. In this regard, the SACP takes this opportunity to wish the newly elected leadership collective, led by cde Panyaza Lesufi, well in their term of office.

As the SACP, we have noted with concern organisational challenges that confronted the conference and that have culminated in its inability to conclude its work. We nevertheless welcome the decision to convene the Provincial General Council (PGC) aimed at concluding the outstanding agenda items of the conference. We are confident that this PGC will assess the objective and subjective balance of forces as it finalises the election of additional members of the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) and fundamentally, the programme of action that will guide the 14th conference PEC.

Re-emergence and consolidation of the slate market 

In congratulating the 13th Conference PEC of the ANC in Gauteng in 2018, we committed ourselves to work with the then newly elected collective to combat the problem of the widespread allegations of the use of money in our congresses and conferences. This observation was triggered by what we had observed as a tendency and widely talked about allegations of the use of money in our revolutionary processes, especially in the lead up to the 2018 Gauteng ANC conference. 

In our analysis, we had observed a dialectical correlation and truth in that factional funding of slates to influence leadership contests reflects the tendency of the independent and objective laws of capitalist development. For example, the slate market has a high demand and supply of the slate services, with a value chain that runs from nominations to conferences and subsequently to deployments in various positions of influence, mainly in the organs of our democratic state. We had observed with concern the emergence of the slate-lords, who employed “runners”, acting as labour brokers, who finally paid a portion of their accumulated revenue for a slate-vote in the slate bourse.  

However, we were encouraged by the ANC’s response and commitment to attend to the allegation of the rampant use of money at the time of its 2018 provincial conference. 

It is in this context that, as the SACP in Gauteng, we wish to express our shock and concern at the continued reports and allegations about the usage of money in the 2022 conference to elect leadership. Clearly, this problem has not been attended to and continues to be divisive and tramples on the fundamental principles of unity. 

This time around this tendency manifested itself through the use of certain leaders as commodities in the slate market. Alarmingly, the two dominant factions branded themselves individually and independently of the ANC. Therefore, there is no doubt that this blatant and naked factionalism is directly correlated to the slate market phenomenon. 

The SACP is therefore not surprised that the conference failed to execute its objective mandate because it was subsumed by the slate market. To this end, we call for a setting up of a mechanism that will swiftly investigate these allegations on the basis and principles of the reconfigured Alliance in the province. This mechanism should investigate such allegations across the Alliance structures in the province.

A call for maximum unity of the ANC in the post-provincial conference period  

It is on these bases that the SACP, once more calls for maximum unity of the ANC as it moves towards the PGC to conclude the work of the conference and beyond. It is in the interest of the newly elected leadership collective to combat the demon of factionalism as manifested through the slate market.  

The strategic task of this leadership collective building towards the 2024 provincial and national elections is to push the forces of counterrevolution dominating the Metros in the Cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni through coalitions of extreme right-wing political parties that promote hatred and prejudice of one kind or another.

We remain of the view that the inability to weed out factionalism and the slate market have practical implications and dangers for our revolution. This problem has been left unattended for a very long time and has begun to plunge the revolution to a crisis.

Issued by the SACP Gauteng Province

Contact:

Jacob Mamabolo – SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary

Mobile: 082 884 1868 

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