ANC draws the line on foot-dragging, calls out governance failures
South Africa - Johannesburg - 09 December 2025 - Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Dr Namane Dickson Masemola, briefed the media on the developments of reclaiming local governance and ensuring that they deliver for the people, during the ANC, National General Council(NGC) at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg.
Image: Itumeleng English/Independent Newspapers
ANC NEC member, Dr Dickson Masemola, said the ANC could no longer tolerate officials who “drag their feet” or “snail pace” their responsibilities while communities suffer and corruption threatens to be a permanent feature of governance.
Speaking ahead of the upcoming NGC, Masemola said the NEC’s impatience was not a matter of choice but a matter of survival.
“We cannot afford and we cannot accept situations where corruption wants to become a permanent feature of our administrative systems of government,” he said.
The deputy minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) emphasised that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s continued use of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and law-enforcement agencies to root out wrongdoing.
He noted that multiple judicial processes were already underway to address cases that had undermined the ANC’s “national democratic project”, adding that this period required sharper political consciousness and urgency from all deployees, both political and administrative.
Masemola’s warning comes as the ANC holds for what he called a “strategically unique” NGC, positioned between the 2026 local government elections and less than two years before the 2027 National Conference.
The sequencing, he argued, places extraordinary pressure on the organisation to stabilise, self-correct and regain public confidence.
“The National General Council is a very important meeting of the African National Congress,” he said, recalling its origins.
First implemented in 2000 following a 1997 decision under Nelson Mandela’s leadership transition, the NGC serves as the ANC’s mid-term political checkpoint.
This is a space for the party to assess performance, recalibrate priorities and test whether the party still commands the confidence of its traditional support base.
This year’s NGC, Masemola stressed, is “now or never”. Branches up to national structures must confront past mistakes, address discontent and “re-occupy the lost imagination in society”.
Masemola said the NEC’s stance was clear that the ANC has no time for hesitation and even less for leaders who fail to deliver.
kamogelo.moichela@iol.co.za
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