All the problems we are facing in the ANC tell you one thing and one thing only -- that people have been sleeping on the job.
It is no secret that the ANC to this day still remains a beacon of hope to the masses of our country; therefore those tasked with leadership positions must give nothing but their best.
Currently, if we are honest with ourselves we will all agree that the ANC is in its weakest state, for us to remedy this crisis we need to get to the root cause of the problem. The NEC has failed dismally to inspire the lower structures; the national leadership has taken the eye off the ball on many occasions and this has led to the degeneration of the whole organisation.
In the ANC we subscribe to the notion of democratic centralism, this means the NEC becomes the custodian of the movement in between conferences. For this to work, the NEC must uphold the constitution of the organisation, all standing orders and work hard towards implementing the resolutions -- this will cascade down to provincial leadership which is represented in the NEC by their chairperson and secretary.
The provincial leadership together with regional leadership will implement decisions of the NEC along with the branches, enabling the organisation to run seamlessly. The branch being the basic unit of the organisation is the place where members exercise their basic democratic rights to discuss and formulate policy, today our branches are in tartars.
The leadership of a branch as prescribed by the constitution shall meet at least once per fortnight and branch general meetings at least once every month. This will help the branch to carry out the publicity and organisational work in its area in furtherance of the policies, programmes and decisions of the ANC; failure to do this -- like we are seeing in a number of branches today -- means we are not going to have a strong ANC.
The president cannot be a liability to the organisation, the president must be beyond reproach and inspire confidence in all those who occupy leadership positions and ordinary members of the organisation.
The constitution further demands that branches must report their activities at least each month to the regional leadership, it is pointless to carry out work if you are not going to report back. The regional leadership supervises and directs the work of the ANC and all its organs within the region; the REC should be able to assist a struggling branch.
When all these things are done the region then reports to the province then the provincial leadership will be able to give the NEC a detailed report of the status of the organisation. In the province, this status will include all branches, not a one size fits all reporting. The NEC must sit with a detailed report of the branches, identify where there are challenges and so forth, this is the ANC in a nutshell as is envisaged in the constitution.
What we are seeing today is high levels of maladministration, the constitution is butchered there's no reporting the NEC is aloof from the branches; this results in an unmanageable number of queries and appeals, factionalism, gatekeeping, court cases and the collapse of the organisation.
The constitution of the ANC further tells us that the President is the political head and chief directing officer of the ANC; a lot is expected from one who fills this position, the president cannot be a liability to the organisation, the president must be beyond reproach and inspire confidence in all those who occupy leadership positions and ordinary members of the organisation.
The time to fix the ANC has indeed arrived, this is not a time for sloganeering and being rhetorical; branches of the ANC need men and women who would boldly stand up -- roll their sleeves and save this glorious movement. I personally promise the members of the ANC to clean and fix the ANC and return it to its glory days.