No more ducking and diving: ANC

The ANC wants to renew itself by focusing on cadre training and on improving its image, sub-committee member and Gauteng secretary David Makhura said on Thursday.

“Going forward, we can't have the ANC ducking and diving, that's the clear message from this policy conference,” he told reporters at a briefing on the sidelines of the ANC's policy conference in Midrand.

The party plans a decade-long focus on improving the quality of its cadres – or members.

This would involve training, eradicating illiteracy, improving skills and competency, and renewing integrity.

"For us to succeed in all the challenges we face, we need to train our cadres in a way we haven't in the last 18 years," Makhura said.

"The next decade is the decade of a cadre." Cadres would undergo compulsory political training through schools set up in all provinces.

"We are creating a new type of ANC member," he said.

The party wanted to use veterans to help educate its members, not only on the history of the party but on the character of an ANC member.

The policy discussion document on organisational renewal was headed by national executive member Fikile Mbalula.

In discussing the core values, Makhura said those ANC members facing serious allegations should step aside, and that disciplinary processes should be sped up.

The commissions have agreed to reduce the number of national executive committee members from 80 to 60. At the national conference in Polokwane in 2007, delegates voted to increase the NEC from 60 to 80 to make it more representative.

People applying to be members of the ANC must undergo a six-month probation period during which they must receive political training and get involved in community service.

“We want the orientation of ANC members to be about solving problems where they live...

“To join the ANC is not an opportunity to become some famous person or worst of all to get a tender, it's about service,” Makhura said.

The ANC wants funding of political parties to be regulated, in line with calls from Institute for Democracy in Africa (Idasa).

Makhura said this did not mean the ANC could not have economic interests, but that there should be no conflict of interest.

There was total agreement on a number of the proposals but there was no agreement on others, he said.

These would be discussed during the run-up to the ANC's elective conference in December where they would be adopted.