NUMSA CALLS ON THE ANC TO DEAL WITH ANC YOUTH CHARLATANS!

Thursday 19 April 2012

The NATIONAL UNION OF METALWORKERS OF SOUTH AFRICA (NUMSA) in the Eastern Cape calls on the African National Congress (ANC) Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) to deal with certain charlatans in the ANC Youth League from the Nelson Mandela Metro Region for consistently attacking the Executive Mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality Comrade Zanuxolo Wayile.

The malicious attacks directed to Comrade Wayile have been happening with "loud" silence from the Regional Executive Committee of the ANC led by Chairperson Nceba Faku. The Regional Executive Committee of the ANC has allowed the Youth League to use its poisonous tongue in the media, as a HOTLINE to spew at the ANC-led Alliance, by demanding the removal of Comrade Wayile.

It is our firm view that the issues of deployment or recalling are internal matters and should not be used as a publicity stunt or cheap shot targeting political opponents as informed by the so-called historical radicalism or militancy of the Young Lions of the ANC. The deployment of Comrade Wayile and other cadres was a shared outcome of alliance as led by the ANC and affirmed the centrality of working class leadership of the ANC.

We are suspicious that these calls of the removal of Comrade Wayile as the Executive Mayor are not genuine, but are informed by the deep-seated and entrenched ‘Kebble-ism' within a particular faction in the Youth League, with a blind support from key political leaders in Metro in order to capture Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality resources for self-centred economic and accumulation interests.

This newly-found obsession by the Youth League for the removal of Comrade Wayile should be understood or located within the context of re-alignment of the wounded as we advance to both the Regional Conference and the Provincial Conference, who are using a particular faction in the Youth League consciously or unconsciously in order to capture the ANC as a vehicle to dispense tenders and patronage to cronies.

We call on the ANC provincial leadership to enforce maximum discipline or induct the ANCYL on the internal ANC processes of the ANC, including its values and traditions.

As NUMSA Eastern Cape we will recommend to our federation in the province, COSATU, a reliable and trusted ally of the ANC, to seek an audience with the ANCYL, to solicit an informed and deeper understanding of these misguided and amateurish calls for the removal of Comrade Zanoxolo as a Mayor.

We still believe that the Youth League remains a critical leadership reservoir and agitator for radical and uninterrupted implementation of the Freedom Charter by the ANC and from the democratic government it leads. However, we refuse to be hoodwinked into an agenda that seeks to serve the interests of personalities or individuals who want to tenderize the ANC.

We appreciate the militancy and energy that has been displayed by the Youth League in relation to raising serious issues to take our revolution forward. We advise the Youth League in the Metro to re-channel its militancy and energy in confronting the triple crisis of poverty, inequalities and unemployment, mostly affecting working class youth.

Statement issued by Phumzile Nodongwe, NUMSA Eastern Cape Regional Secretary, April 19 2012

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