ANC task team in Gauteng vows to ‘clean out' self-serving members
Nearly three months after the 68-member Gauteng Provincial Task Team (PTT) was appointed to rebuild the ANC's structures in the province, halt its electoral decline and improve its image, the team believes it is starting to make progress.
When the structure took over, the party had suffered major electoral losses in South Africa's economic hub, with its share of the vote in Gauteng dropping from 50.02% in 2019 to 34.8% in 2024.
The decline was attributed to a number of factors, including the collapse of branches. The party's secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, said one of the immediate tasks was to conduct an audit and rebuild the party's structures, after which it could hold elective conferences.
Addressing journalists on Thursday, the Gauteng PTT coordinator, Hope Papo, said the team hit the ground running, with 80% of the branches now in good standing.
'As things stand, many of the branches in our province are administratively in good standing; we no longer have a situation where a branch has less than 100 members. We are now dealing with political and ideological ethos so that branches understand that their main purpose is to serve their communities.'
By-election win
Papo and his team briefed journalists hours after the party had its best by-election result in 2025 and arguably its second-best since the 2024 national elections, when it comfortably retained wards in Soweto after securing 2,630 votes, well ahead of the uMkhonto Wesizwe party, with 1,100 votes.
Papo said the results were a demonstration of the work being done to reposition the organisation.
Gauteng is grappling with recurring problems, including governance failures, financial mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure, crime and lawlessness and lack of service delivery.
In March 2025, Gauteng Finance MEC Lebogang Maile, who is an ANC deployee, warned of a liquidity crisis if resources were not spent prudently across various government departments, threatening service delivery and exposing the province to significant governance and fiscal risks.
'We think we can turn around Gauteng,' said Papo.
The media briefing followed a two-day inaugural provincial lekgotla earlier this month, which, among other things, agreed to support the government in resolving the Gauteng priorities.
'The PTT will monitor the implementation of the Local Government Turnaround Summit resolutions, which will play a significant role in improving local governance,' said Papo.
He said the PTT would evaluate the work of the government quarterly, but would not micromanage the party's deployees as they had the power to act in government.
One of the first steps the Gauteng PTT would take towards improving local governance was supporting the Presidential Johannesburg Working Group and the Department of Cooperative Governance's Turnaround Plan in Emfuleni Local Municipality, said Papo.
Members with 'ulterior motives'
At the lekgotla, it was also acknowledged that some leaders, acting in their own interest, had damaged the party's image. It was agreed that the party should break away from those who are in the organisation only for personal gain.
As SA prepares for the 2026 local government elections, Papo said the party needed to intensify renewal programmes.
'There are ANC leaders who are out of touch with their constituency, not schooled in the values and goals of the ANC … people who join the ANC for nefarious and ulterior motives, and part of the renewal is to deal with that section in the organisation which are not there to serve the community, but for their own personal endorsement and issues like that,' he said.
Part of the renewal process, said Papo, involved 'cleaning them out', without naming anyone. He added that some of these individuals had already walked away and were no longer active in the party's structures.
Meanwhile, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi explained that the party's strategy was based on detailed polling and surveys, which the ANC had invested heavily in after the 2024 electoral losses.
'The strategic direction that we are taking in local government is to do things that other people are not aware that the ANC is doing,' he said, pointing to recent by-election results, reclaiming control of SRCs at universities, securing majorities in school governing bodies and placing ANC leaders in senior municipal roles, including mayors.
On Wednesday, Mbalula sang Papo's praises while speaking at the Duma Nokwe Memorial Lecture, saying the Gauteng PTT was doing a good job of reviving and rebuilding the party.
'We must build our structures, and we must exorcise the wrongs out of the ANC. If it means we must lose friends because we are doing the right thing, let it be,' said Mbalula. DM
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