The ANC in the Western Cape said it was ready to convene its 9th elective provincial congress at the weekend.
Briefing the media on Monday, convenor Lerumo Kalako said the interim provincial committee (IPC) embarked on an extensive exercise of renewing and rebuilding party structures in the province.
“From time to time, questions were asked about the ability of this IPC to deliver on the terms of references given to it by the NEC.
“This was largely because people confined themselves only to matters relating to organising a conference whereas the terms of references were quite extensive and clear on what needed to be done,” Kalako said.
He noted that the ANC in the Western Cape found itself in a “difficult situation” with its unity and cohesion eroded.
“Its electoral fortunes had turned for the worst, structures had been dysfunctional for a sustained period of time.
“Frankly we had paper-based branches with no real active presence on the ground.”
Kalako also said Covid-19 pandemic worsened the situation and made their organising work difficult due to a number of restrictions.
“Given all these internal and external challenges, the IPC has been able to operate as a cohesive unit.
“We have been able to forge greater unity of purpose within our structures,” he said.
Kalako said they have held four regional conferences and that the two remaining regions have met their thresholds.
IPC co-ordinator Thandi Manikivana said the fact that two regions have not held their conferences would not impact on the provincial conference.
She said they had met the threshold of 240 qualifying branches to a conference.
The conference will be attended by 700 delegates, and 650 will be delegates from the branches, the regional executive committees, IPC and the leagues.
The remaining 50 will be guests from the alliance partners, fraternal organisations and key stakeholders.
The branch delegates, who will be pre-registered in their regions prior to arrival at the conference, will receive their name tags on Friday from 7am until 10am.
Manikivana said they expected seamless registration of delegates as disputes have been resolved.
Manikivana told the Cape Times that Cape Town International Convention Centre has assured them that there were back-up generators.
Cape Times