The ANC in Gauteng is between a rock and a hard place, and the hackneyed phrase “desperate times call for desperate measures” seems to be the best way it can extricate itself from this political mess ahead of 2024’s provincial and national elections.
Survey after survey, including one by the ANC itself, has confirmed a now widely held view that its support could dip below the 50% mark for the first time since democracy in 1994.
It is unsurprising, considering that the party’s electoral support has been on a downward trajectory in the province for years. It mustered 36.06% of the vote in the 2021 municipal elections from 45.84% and 59.66% in the 2016 and 2011 municipal polls, respectively.
The party, which boasts struggle stalwarts Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo as part of its ancestry, is on shaky ground in Gauteng. It lost control of the crucial metros of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane to DA-led coalitions during the 2021 municipal election. That the ANC-EFF coalition subsequently managed to take back control of Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg is another story.
The ANC knows it is in real danger of losing control of Gauteng, SA’s economic powerhouse that contributes nearly 40% to GDP, as it struggles to address the crises of unemployment and lack of service delivery, which affects delivery of basic services like housing, clinics, schools, water and electricity.
Premier Panyaza Lesufi, who was narrowly elected ANC Gauteng chair in June 2022, has his work cut out for him. His party’s desperate situation does call for desperate measures.
Faced with the reality of presiding over a movement in decline, Lesufi has been criss-crossing the province and implementing a number of initiatives aimed at addressing the unemployment scourge.
Electioneering
The province has about 582,000 discouraged job seekers, while unemployment stands at 2.6-million. Economic development MEC Tasneem Motara said more than 300,000 job opportunities were lost in 2022 due to load-shedding.
Similar to British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, Lesufi has vowed to “never let a good crisis go to waste”. He launched an ambitious project in May to unleash about 10,000 crime-prevention wardens, colloquially called “AmaPanyaza”, to fight crime in the province.
While this attracted criticism from opposition parties and civil rights groups such as AfriForum, which questioned the alleged lack of transparency in the wardens’ recruitment and described the move as electioneering, it offered the dual benefit of fighting crime and eating into unemployment. Unperturbed, Lesufi went ahead and launched the Nasi Ispani employment drive on June 16, with a closing date for online applications of July 14.
In an update in Midrand on Friday, Lesufi said 8,000 of the funded posts in the province had attracted more than 1.2-million applications — highlighting the unemployment plight and how desperate people are for work.
“The overwhelming response to the Nasi Ispani programme showed the enormous scale of unemployment in SA,” he said.
“Thousands of young people responded to the advertised positions, and what became clear is that many young people are desperate for jobs. This programme allowed us to see the faces behind the unemployment statistics,” Lesufi said.
He said the more than 1.2-million job applications would be packaged for collection by the various provincial government departments — registered, sorted and captured — and “each department will start the shortlisting process, conduct interviews and ultimately offer suitable candidates job offers”.
But Lesufi’s political opponents have criticised the campaign.
On Monday, the EFF said it “strongly opposes” Panyaza’s announcement at an ANC gathering at Ellis Park over the weekend “to distribute 50,000 appointment letters at Orlando Stadium”.
“The decision to bypass the normal selection and notification process raises serious concerns about the fairness and transparency of the process,” said EFF Gauteng chair Nkululeko Dunga. “This is an insult to the intelligence and dignity of the people and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
EFF leader Julius Malema also has criticised the Nasi Ispani campaign, dismissing it as a “criminal activity of the ANC and Panyaza”. On Friday, he said the party was “hiring those campaigners of the ANC”.
“They want to get volunteers of the ANC [and] put them on the payroll of government. Then when [election] posters time come, they release them; when door-to-door [campaigns begin] they release them; when marches come, they release them, so it’s not a genuine thing,” Malema said.
Committed
Responding to the EFF’s allegations, Panyaza’s spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said on Monday the provincial government remains committed to the “transparency of this recruitment process.”
“This handover process of appointment letters forms part of that. We are not going to allow naysayers and those who want to politicise this process to defocus us from creating jobs and opportunities for the unemployed,” Pamla said.
ActionSA is also moving against the Nasi Ispani initiative. Its Gauteng leader, Funzi Ngobeni, said the party had embarked on a Promotion of Access to Information Act application to determine if those being hired are “ANC cadres”.
He said the party had received “numerous complaints” from the Gauteng youth that “this scheme is being used for political ends”.
Other allegations are that the ANC is “throwing money at the problem” to win the next elections.
But for the ANC, it seems, the end must always justify the means. The party, which enjoys incumbency advantage but is limping forward to the 2024 elections, has mastered the art of patronage and throwing money at socioeconomic problems, rather than addressing the root causes.
For example, the R350 social relief of distress grant paid to 8.5-million people was supposed to end in May 2023, but was extended to end in 2024 — an election year. The grant has a budget of R36bn in 2023/24.
Another example is the presidential employment stimulus, which has had more than 1.1-million beneficiaries since October 2020 and will now also come to an end in 2024. The stimulus has a budget of R10bn in 2023/24.
But who could blame Lesufi for throwing hard-pressed taxpayers’ money at these problems? He faces the possibility of being relegated to the opposition benches after next year’s elections.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.