Picture: Sanco in North West during media briefing in Mahikeng
By OBAKENG MAJE
South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) in NorthWest says it supports the decision of the ANC Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) to remove troikas at five municipalities.
SANCO’s Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) held a media briefing in Mahikeng on Tuesday. SANCO provincial secretary, Packett Seaketso said they believe that the action was taken by the ANC IPC will go a long way in restoring confidence in the masses and fast-track delivery of quality basic services to the people.
“We believe that this decision will improve financial management, deal decisively with fraud and corruption, ensure accountability, compliance, and consequence management for poor performance as well as to bring about capable political leadership and improved oversight,” he said.
Seaketso also lambasted those who call for the disbandment of the ANC IPC. He defended the structure and said the ANC IPC like any other structure is not perfect.
“It has its challenges many of which are deliberately manufactured through the convention and coordination of meetings organised in very dark corners some known past and current leaders. The many currents choreographed calls for the disbandment of the IPC has a similar hallmark of the recently choreographed national call for the removal of the President.
“Those who make this call has a pre-Nasrec pre-occupation at the time when our people are confronted with poverty, unemployment, inequality, and the cancer of corruption and poor service delivery. It is clear by their continued call for the deportation of the IPC coordinator, Hlomani Chauke that we are dealing with people who have a Bophuthatswana hangover,” he said.
Seaketso added that the ANC IPC has a task to supervise and guide all ANC caucuses and its deployees without fear or favour. He further said they are encouraged that the ANC IPC has been very relentless in the execution of this important task in the interest of the people who voted for no individual but the ANC.
“As SANCO, we are alive to the reality that there is a concerted campaign to deface the work of the ANC IPC by making it difficult for it to operate. We are aware that there are people targeting certain ANC IPC members through smear campaign and character assassination.
“SANCO and its allies will continue to support and collaborate with the ANC IPC as long as it carries its mandate without any equivocation. We also call on the ANC National Executive Committee not to be deluded by this proliferation of political choreography,” said Seaketso.
He also launched a scathing attack on the ANCWL acting provincial secretary, Bitsa Lenkopane. Seaketso said that the ANCWL in the North West has defined itself as a representative and advocate of a particular group of some fictionally anointed women.
“When the North West Premier, Prof Job Mokgoro was about to pronounce a reshuffling, the same ANCWL celebrated despite the fact that several women were going to be affected by the reshuffling and being replaced by some ANCWL’s preferences such as Bitsa Lenkopane despite her horrendous criminal record.
“We call on the ANC IPC to take disciplinary action against Lenkopane for agitating for mass defiance of structural resolutions. This group of the ANCWL is obsessed with defending five women at the expense of service delivery of thousands of women and children in our province,” he said.
ANCWL acting provincial secretary, Bitsa Lenkopane said: “I must indicate that I am an acting ANCWL in the province and I am a product of a conference. I have branches that the ANCWL in the province is leading and respond to the needs of majority within the communities of the province on daily basis.
“So, do not tell me about a structure sa mahamba ka ntlwana (makeshift structure), where everybody can wake up and say I am SANCO and I’m leading. However, what I am communicating here is a position of a legitimate structure that is the league of the ANC.
“When you tell me about those people who even alleged that I am a convicted criminal and all that, this is personal and I will deal with them personally. It is not what they use to do with their handlers and masters to dent me thinking that they were killing me,” Lenkopane said.
She also threatened to take legal action against those who alleged that she is a convicted criminal. Lenkopane concluded that SANCO provincial leadership that held a media briefing today is ‘bogus’ and she will call on the ‘legitimate’ SANCO structure to respond.
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