NUMSA CALLS ON ANC TO RECONSTITUTE NELOSN MANDELA BAY METRO's MAYORAL COMMITTEE

26 June 2011

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) in the Eastern Cape Province calls on the African National Congress (ANC)-led Alliance, as the strategic political centre of power in the Eastern Cape  and broader society broadly to review and re-constitute the Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality (NMM) Mayoral Committee in the interest of transformation and service delivery and electoral confidence the workers and the poor of NMM have shown to the Liberation Alliance to govern the Metro on their behalf.

We strongly believe that the current Mayoral Committee will be incapable of taking forward the electoral mandate and aspirations bestowed to the ANC-led Alliance by the workers and the poor in the Metro.

The Mayoral Committee was constituted in a clandestine manner in order to strengthen a particular and dominant faction within the ANC-led Alliance, which is hell-bent of using the Metro or the Local State as a strategic entry for its self-centred accumulation strategy at the expense of the workers and the poor of the Metro.

Our call for the ANC-led Alliance to review and reconstitute the Mayoral Committee in the Metro is not de-linked from our calls for the ANC to speed-up the processes of dealing decisively with grievances emanating from the flawed list process and dissatisfactions raised by structures and communities.

The inability by the ANC-led Alliance in the province to heed our call, we will be setting-up for failure the Metro administration as led by Cde Zanoxolo Wayile and the workers and the poor will be agitated to respond harshly.

This can be seen in the ugly and confrontational episodes in uMsunduzi (Pietermaritzburg), triggered by internal dissent over the appointment or imposition of Councilors in our communities by different factions that want to capture power within the movement and inside the leverages of power in the State.

We call on Alliance to make sure that ill-disciplined and corrupt individuals are removed from the Council.

As Numsa, we will engage our federation - COSATU - and the Alliance in the province with an intention of convening an Alliance meeting to deal with this matter decisively.

We call upon all metalworkers and the poor of the Nelson Mandela Metro to not only swell the ranks of the ANC, but to take a centre stage and play an active role in the life of the ANC branches.

In our view it is only an ANC which is dominated by the working class that can guarantee that the Polokwane Resolutions, National Democratic Revolution and the Freedom Charter will be implemented to their logical conclusion.

Statement issued by Vuyo Bikitsha, NUMSA Regional Secretary, June 24 2011

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