The provincial executive committee member addressed the regional general council.
Mpumalanga ANC treasurer Vusi Shongwe has appealed for unity, saying the time of congresses divides the ANC.
He said “conferences cause disorder” and they have accepted that as a “norm”.
Shongwe was addressing the special regional general council of the ANC in Nkangala on Saturday morning (25 Mar).
“I want all of you you here to go back in your branches and be ambassadors of unity,” he told delegates at the Banquet hall in Middelburg.
“And don’t allow your leaders to use you for their own agendas,” said Shongwe.
He said members who didn’t have money or power found themselves being used by those with money or power to achieve their own interests.
He also warned against greediness, saying the other way to stay united is to avoid being greedy.
“In order for us to be united we must try to not be greedy, we must know that there are comrades who are volunteers who get absolutely nothing in return for the love of the movement,” he said.
“ANC is not divided by ordinary members, it is divided by us the leaders of upper structures and deployees, it is us who think we know better,” Shongwe said, adding that should stop.
The ANC in the Nkangala region is expected to retain the current leadership as a way of forging ‘unity’.
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This campaign, called ‘maintaining the status quo’, is expected to elected current chairman Speedy Mashilo for a third term and Leah Khoza for a second term but another faction opposed to this wants change, saying the main faction’s call for unity is biased.
A source in the regional executive committee said that although the campaign seeks to maintain the status quo it does not mean that the positions of deputies wouldn’t be contested. “What we are looking at are key leaders, we want to retain the chairperson and and secretary and at the same time bring in young leaders into the fold as the chairperson has said”
The ANCYL in the province has been lobbying provincial leader David Mabuza for a forty-percent inclusion of young people into strategic positions in the party and in government for the past two years.
However one other faction has been lobbying for an outright leadership change and a take over of young people. It wants JS Moroka mayor Gijimani Skhosana to emerge as the new chairman when the region goes to its elective conference in May 2017.
(edited by PM)
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