The ANC electoral committee wants the party to establish a special team to investigate manipulation of the local government candidates' list in North West.

In a report to the party's national executive committee, which met this weekend, the committee was highly critical of the province and its leadership.

The committee, which is chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, said the province was dysfunctional, insatiable and disunited.

The committee was tasked by the ANC to deal with grievances of local government councillor candidates who were wrongly removed from the list in the lead-up to last year's local government elections.

A number of disputes were lodged with the ANC national leadership but the party resolved it would only deal with the matter after the elections, promising its members that those found to have been wrongly selected would be asked to resign and the party would go for by-elections.

“The integrity of the dispute resolution process in North West is in shambles and requires intensive and extensive investigation to get to the bottom of the issues in order to find an amicable way forward.

“It is on this basis that the electoral committee strongly recommends that a special investigations team be established by the NEC as matter of urgency to focus on a wide spread of allegations of the manipulation of the candidate selection processes by [branch, regional and provincial leadership],” reads the report.

It asks the ANC to establish a team comprised of unelected leaders who do not have ambitions to serve on constitutional structures of the ANC.

North West was one the provinces with the highest number of disputes, with local structures constantly at loggerheads with the interim provincial committee.

The province has been led by the IPC since its provincial leadership, led by former premier Supra Mahumapelo, was disbanded in 2018.

The report attributes some of the problems in the province to the fact that it is led by an interim structure.

“There is no shadow of doubt that the current state of the ANC in North West, which has been led by an interim structure for more than three years, has contributed to the dysfunctionality, disunity and instability of all the ANC structures across the board.

“Investigations and punitive measures would not provide sustainable solutions to the political challenges faced by the ANC in North West unless we rebuild strong, resilient and capable branches, regions and the [provincial executive committee], with the leadership that is fit for purpose,” reads the report.

The province was due to hold its provincial elective conference last week but it was postponed to May because its branches were not ready.

According to the report, the province registered 76 disputes after 76 community candidates were removed from the list of councillor candidates. 

The report said the provincial list committee, which is responsible for compiling the list of councillor candidates, had been engaged in an endless confrontation with the IPC through the exchange of harsh and provocative correspondence in the lead-up to the elections.

It said there had been counter accusations of manipulation of the candidate selection processes between the two structures.

“At the time of compiling this report, the relationship between the IPC and the PLC in North West had irretrievably broken to an extent that the IPC unilaterally decided to dissolve the PLC. The IPC has no unilateral authority to dissolve the PLC because all the PLCs are established by the electoral committee with recommendations from the IPC/PEC.

“There was no unity and cohesion among the PLC members, to an extent that only two members of the PLC were active by the time the IPC took its unauthorised decision to disband the PLC,” reads the report.

The report recommends that no ward councillors should be recalled, removed or fired unless they are found guilty of misconduct after internal disciplinary processes have been completed and an appropriate sanction has been imposed. 

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