Durban – One year after toppling the ANC in several key KwaZulu-Natal municipalities, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) will assess the performance of its political leadership in the province to see whether they are on track or not.
This was announced on Monday by the party’s president, Velenkosini Hlabisa, in his New Year message to South Africans.
The assessments have been widely welcomed amid concerns that in some municipalities nothing has been done since the ANC was ousted, while in others a lot has happened.
“2023 must be a year of heightened political activism ahead of the 2024 national and provincial elections, for it is these elections that will make or break South Africa and her future.
“We must engage in election mode for change on one hand, and ensure progress in people’s lives on the other.
“I am inviting all South Africans to join the IFP in our patriotic endeavours to change our country for the better. I am calling for grassroots activism on our journey to 2024.
"The IFP exists to serve the people. Following the 2021 local government elections, which saw the IFP resurge, and as we continue to maintain this upward trajectory in subsequent by-elections, we owe it to the people to account on progress and challenges.
“This we will do,” Hlabisa said in his New Year message.
He then announced details of the assessment, promising that his party would not hesitate to fire under-performing political office bearers.
“In the first quarter of 2023, we will undertake a full-scale assessment of service delivery output in all IFP-governed municipalities, with our 2021 Manifesto’s 10-point plan being the yardstick measure.
“[After] this assessment, where leadership changes are required, mayors, deputy mayors, speakers and councillors will be recalled, even if it means going to by-elections.
“We will not accept excuses nor allow complacency to take over,” Hlabisa vowed.
One municipality where there is growing dissatisfaction is the Uthukela District Municipality, where the frequent water cuts the IFP inherited from the ANC are still the order of the day.
The water cuts affect towns such as Ladysmith, a key industrial city in the north-western part of KwaZulu-Natal.
The assessment also comes at a time when IFP factions are reported to be at each other’s throats in some municipalities, thus hampering service delivery.
The IFP has repeatedly denied that factions exist within its ranks.
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