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All ANC members must renew membership, get vetted – Potgieter tells policy conference

Nomazima Nkosi Senior reporter
ANC general manager Febe Potgieter briefing the media at the ANC Policy Conference in Nasrec, Johannesburg.
ANC general manager Febe Potgieter briefing the media at the ANC Policy Conference in Nasrec, Johannesburg.
Image: Sandile Ndlovu

The ANC wants to renew the membership of all of its members.

This is one of the policy recommendations tabled during the ANC’s policy conference on Saturday in Nasrec, Johannesburg.

ANC general manager Febe Potgieter told the sixth policy conference that this was aimed at rooting out corruption in the party.

The ANC has come under fire with 200 of its members appearing in the commission of inquiry into state capture report by chief justice Raymond Zondo.

Once vetted and verified, these members are expected to present themselves at the party’s integrity commission in two months.

Following that, the integrity commission is expected to complete its work in six months.

“The second area of renewal has to do with how we ensure that the members and leadership we have in the organisation represent the best in society.

“Our Constitutional amendment suggested we need to introduce in our December conference much stricter requirements for ANC membership. For example, at the moment, if you pay R20 a year you can join the ANC and there’s no other requirement.

“What we want to do and the proposal is we need to look at all sorts of criteria for ANC member so the proposal is that after national conference, we have a process where we all renew our membership and that we then all get vetted.

“All the members of the ANC then need to be able to get vetted so that you're sure that then the membership that you have are members that indeed ascribe to an agreed set of values, a set of principles, a set of criteria that we have,” said Potgieter.

Potgieter added that delegates at the policy conference would discuss a range of proposals aimed at strengthening the committee and possibly make the commission’s recommendations binding.

As the policy conference got underway and before credentials were adopted, a group of ANC delegates inside plenary thought to be supporters of former president Jacob Zuma started singing Wenzeni uZuma (what has Zuma done).

However, ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe is said to have shut them down immediately before the song gained traction and called them into order.

Delegates are expected to continue with commissions and discuss policy proposals.

PODCAST | Step-aside issue set to dominate policy conference and influence ANC leadership

nkosin@sowetan.co.za

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