ANC needs to get its affairs in order, Cosatu’s Losi says

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The ANC’s alliance partners have called on the ruling party to get its house in order to stand a chance at winning the national elections set for 2024.

Speaking at the ANC’s 111th birthday celebration in the Free State on Sunday, 8 January, labour federation Cosatu’s leader Zingiswa Losi urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to uproot factionalism within the party and provide a solution to end ongoing rolling blackouts.

In a heated speech, Losi said the alliance partners were also unhappy with the lack of action taken to improve the lives of workers and South Africans.

She said load-shedding had seen many workers lose their jobs as companies closed  down because they were unable to meet the rising costs linked to the rotational power cuts.

“Workers have put the entire movement on notice; workers are saying to the ANC today to dismantle factionalism, remove incompetent employees and unite the ANC,” she said.

At the party’s 55th elective conference last month, where Ramaphosa clinched a second term as president, the ANC adopted a renewal resolution which aims to see the party clamp down on corruption and state capture while also tackling unemployment and load-shedding.

On Sunday, Losi said the alliance partners were concerned that Ramaphosa was backtracking from the ANC’s step-aside resolution adopted at its 2017 national conference, which prohibits party members who have been criminally charged from standing for office.

The rule saw former ANC secretary general Ace Magashule and Andile Lungile being suspended from their positions.

“We have fears that we have noticed that the organisation is backtracking on step-aside,” Losi said. “Those that have been charged and convicted for criminal offences must step aside. We cannot have leaders with criminal convictions leading the country.”

Losi called on Ramaphosa to openly confront neoliberalism, dismantle the networks of state capture and clamp down on corruption.

She warned that if it did not address internal party conflict, the ANC would fail to win next year’s national elections “as the working class continues to lose confidence in the ruling party”.

Solly Mapaila, general secretary of the other alliance partner, the South African Communist Party, said for the ANC to fulfil its resolution to renew itself, it should place emphasis on ending load-shedding as a matter of urgency, overcoming the overall energy production and supply security crisis, and ensuring a just energy transition in all respects — including financing.

Mapaila said the ANC must move more decisively on the formation of a mixed energy policy and just transition programme, which must include new publicly owned power stations to build self-sufficiency in electricity generation and supply.

Losi added that the decisions the ANC makes in this regard should ensure that workers are not left unemployed, making reference to Eskom employees who will be adversely affected by the transition from coal-fired to renewable energy. Mapaila, for his part, said a transition that involved retrenchments and condemned active towns in energy-producing areas into becoming ghost towns, would be unjust.

Both Losi and Mapaila accused Ramaphosa of caving to pressure from Western Europe to abandon the use of coal in energy production.

While delivering his speech at the ANC’s birthday celebrations, Ramaphosa said the party’s priorities included accelerating the resolution of the country’s energy crunch.

“To further reduce stress on the national grid, the government and [state power utility] Eskom must enforce demand management measures to reduce electricity consumption and ensure available energy is directed to areas and sectors of priority, including support for health and educational institutions and municipal infrastructure,” he said.

“Government should secure additional power in the short term by leveraging surplus capacity from existing generators and procuring additional power on an emergency basis.”