ANC postpones all party conferences

The ANC has postponed all its conferences, including its national general council, due to Coronavirus.

This was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in Irene, Pretoria, after a meeting of the party's extended national working committee yesterday.

"Provincial, regional conferences and the national general council, conferences of the women's league and the youth league have been postponed until further notice... the extended national working committee has so decided," Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa also announced that the national command council will be holding a meeting with religious leaders at the Union Buildings on Thursday to give them a full briefing on the steps taken to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Ramaphosa, when responding to questions, also expressed concerns on poor people living in informal settlements who may struggle to self-isolate due to their living and transport arrangements. 

"This I must tell you is one of the areas of our greatest concern, the apartheid spatial architecture has bequeathed us with a flawed transport system which compels our people to utilise modes of transport in large numbers and obviously this is an area where we could face enormous challenges.

"And the national command council is going to be looking very closely at how we address the challenge that's bound to come when the outbreak begins to go to a number of other places where many of our people live or get transported," he said. 

"We think and get concerned about an outbreak where our people live in informal settlements, that is one of the greatest concerns we have. We will be discussing that because we all want to ensure that prevention and containment does take place at a more maximum level in those areas."