Had the novel coronavirus pandemic occurred before the dawn of democracy “our people would have been wiped out”, KwaZulu-Natal ANC provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli believes.

Ntuli was speaking at a post provincial executive committee (PEC) media briefing on Tuesday where he praised the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa during the pandemic, saying South Africans should count themselves fortunate.

“The South African government has demonstrated enormous capability, the decision to place our country into a lockdown has been hailed as one of the decisive steps in disrupting the spread and unmitigated circulation of the virus.

“We have had no precedence to depend on, we are fortunate that the pandemic occurred at a time when the ANC is governing this country. Had it occurred before 1994, I think many of our people would have been wiped out, because at the time we had a regime that did not care about the overwhelming majority of our country,” Ntuli said.

The provincial secretary said the party had received complaints from members of regions like eThekwini, Moses Mabhida and lower south coast about the manner in which some members were handling the distribution of food.

Ntuli encouraged members to mobilise assistance but warned against using food parcels for factional gain, whether real or perceived, and strongly condemned the parading of any assistance for the needy through social networks and media.

“Hunger does not have ideological orientation, hunger does not have factional orientation, it is about the poor of our country, and we are saying using that food in a manner which is seen to be in support of certain groupings within the organisation will not be tolerated, neither will our members doing anything that has potential to divide and defocus the ANC and its government during the pandemic,” Ntuli said.

He said such conduct was insensitive, devoid of humility and inconsistent with the value system of the ANC.

The party, through its provincial working committee, has committed to investigating all allegations of mishandling of food relief packages in the province.

“Once all the necessary information has been collected, action will be taken against those involved,” Ntuli added.