Ziwaphi Relentless quest for the truth
The South African National Civics Organisation in Mpumalanga is considering contesting the 2019 general elections.
The organisation says that this decision was motivated by its ally, the African National Congress’s failure to “honour Alliance resolutions”.
“The Extended PWC resolved to table a recommendation to the Early National Conference for SANCO to cut ties with the ANC, and retain its character as the civic organisation focusing on the development of communities irrespective of political affiliations. The continued failure to honour the alliance resolutions both at the provincial and regional level left us with no option but to reconsider our participation in further alliance summits,” said the organisation’s provincial secretary, Mike Soko.
He also accused the ANC’s deployment of perpetuating factions in the province.
“Whilst appreciating that deployments are the preserve of the ANC, it is clear that such processes are used to undermine the integrity of other alliance partners. The ANC deployments continues to be less reflective of the Alliance and advances narrow factional agenda,” he said.
The organisation admitted that there have always been problems with the ANC, however, the last straw was the ANC’s relationship with the Practical Radical Economic Transformation (PRET).
PRET is a non-governmental organisation that was established in 2017 to highlight issues of unemployment of young people.
“They even go to municipalities and say ‘we don’t want that mayor’, and lead marches against certain mayors that they don’t want. We are saying as SANCO, this is not an Alliance partner. Where is the ANC Youth League to raise those things? If it (were) the ANCYL we would have understood. But we are seeing PRET taking the space of the ANCYL in the ANC. We are calling on the ANC to put a stop to that. The ANC must distance itself from PRET, because some of their activities are criminal, distribution of money, where is that money coming from?” said Soko.
The civic movement’s leader said that the challenges that SANCO was facing against the ANC in Mpumalanga was the same as those faced by other province, such as North West, Free State, KZN and Limpopo.
“In all other provinces I can attest to that. We are faced with the same challenges. We are talking with other provincial secretaries and chairpersons to say that let’s take the organisation to another level. Let’s fight of the poor people we claim to be representing. We are calling ourselves the watchdog of communities, and we must live to that. We must fight for their plight, we must fight for the betterment of their lives,” Soko said.
