SADTU congratulates the newly elected ANC leadership collective

SADTU would like to congratulate the elected "top 6" officials and National Executive Committee of the African National Congress in its 53rd national congress under the leadership President Comrade Jacob Zuma. The emphatic manner in which comrade Zuma emerged from conference serves as a clear manifestation of the confidence that ordinary branch members have in his leadership capabilities.

We also congratulate COSATU President S'dumo Dlamini and other worker representatives who have made it to the National Executive Committee. We hope this will strengthen the voice of workers in the organization to ensure that adopted policies address the needs of the working class and the poor.

We are very confident that this newly elected leadership collective will work with us and cement the character of the ANC as a working class biased organization. We want an NEC that will ensure that organizational discipline is maintained in the ANC and that individualism is permanently erased from the leadership collective. In our view, this is the only way in which this glorious movement can realize another 100yrs.

We also want to acknowledge and appreciate the fact that the branch delegates, in their overwhelming majority, were not prepared to sell Africa's oldest liberation movement to the highest bidder. SADTU has consistently said one of the biggest challenges faced by the ANC emanates from disunity that had been sown by those who want the soul of the movement for their narrow objectives.

We congratulate and thank them for representing the more than 1,2million ANC members in a mature, united and disciplined manner.

"Survey"

We noted the much publicized survey of Cosatu shop stewards which indicated unhappiness of the shop stewards with the Zuma second term, lack of confidence in the SACP and that they would want Cosatu to open its own labour party. To SADTU, as the fourth biggest COSATU affiliate and one of its largest public sector unions, this came as a huge surprise. 

We view the results of this study with suspicion and find ourselves compelled to ask three fundamental questions: Who conducted this study? What interest do they have in the movement as a whole? What informed the release of the results on the eve of Mangaung?

Mashele

Let us not forget that the company behind the study - Forum For Public Dialogue (FPD) is chaired by the brother of former President Thabo Mbeki, Moeletsi Mbeki who has always been antagonistic to the ruling party and Prince Mashele who is well known for his "hatred" for Zuma, is the CEO. The credibility of this study is thus heavily tainted and we find it difficult to accept the results as an accurate reflection of reality.

We must mention that we were taken aback with the manner in which the survey became public news. We must all be vigilant as members of our union and protect the constitutional structures that are entitled to take decisions and not allow tendencies that would undermine the long standing democratic tradition of taking decisions.

Fabrication

We wonder where the shopstewards interviewed come from because SADTU's decision to support the leadership of the ANC led by Zuma in Mangaung was motivated overwhelmingly by our members including our site stewards. The significant margin with which Cde Zuma was re-elected by members of the ANC who are also part of the working class in their great majority tells a different story.

Essentially it indicates that the results of this survey are most likely very far from the truth and were just meant to cast doubt on his leadership capabilities. They also serve to perpetuate the trend by some sectors which include the neo liberal media, so-called analysts, some NGOs etc. to fabricate a crisis.

In recent SADTU constitutional gatherings such as National Executive Committee meetings and the National General Council what came out strongly was that unity, continuity and cohesion should be the outcome of the 53rd congress of the ANC. We are therefore fully confident that this leadership collective will take us closer to complete organizational renewal of the ANC and help us to mitigate some of the major challenges facing our country including those in the education sector.

Corruption

We also welcome the programme that the conference has adopted and the commitment to deal decisively with corruption and mediocrity by those officials entrusted with the responsibility of delivering services to our people. We count on all members of SADTU to expose corruption without any apology in order to defend our movement and the Union from these corrupt senior officials.

Our union will work hard to ensure that the adopted policy to centralize the procurement of Learning Teacher Support Materials does not translate into the enrichment of corrupt officials in the department of education as we have seen in the Limpopo textbook saga. We will study the education policies adopted in order to draw a programme to improve the quality of education.

Statement issued by SADTU Secretariat, December 21 2012

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