Mpumalanga ANC members have been warned to think before uttering promissory statements to the public because if they fail to deliver on the promises that will be used against the party.

Speaking during the closing of the ANC provincial lekgotla held in Mbombela from Monday to Tuesday, acting provincial ANC chairperson Mandla Ndlovu said unemployment was the main problem that needed to be dealt with in the province.

Ndlovu called on party members to prioritise implementation of the party's policies or face consequences for failure to do so.

“We continue to have two communities, one which is covered in barbed wires and another which is confronted with service delivery protests. There must be consequences for failing to implement our resolutions,” said Ndlovu without explaining the barbed wire metaphor in his analogy.

“We must fix people’s problems; we must identify low hanging fruits. Before you open your mouth and talk about any policy you must make sure that you have a budget. So please, all of us we want to request members of the ANC to stop making empty commitments; we must deal with crime and corruption and let us all unite and face the opposition.”

Ndlovu said the ANC was the only party that self corrected and admitted to failures to deliver.

“As we speak we have provided about 29,000 title deeds and we must admit though that our target was 80,000. We are therefore one party that admits if we have failed. We must prioritise unemployment, that is why we come with a clean programme on how we are going to fight unemployment.”

Ndlovu also said the province had a problem of undocumented young people born of foreign parents who are attending schools.

“We know that the department has decided to not open a window for these people to apply [for permanent residency]. We are going to continue persuading our government, this time around not for the [foreign] parents but for the children who are a school and are countryless [despite being] are born in this country.”