Staff Reporter
The ANC in the Free State is worried its campaign ahead of next year’s local government elections could be hugely affected by COVID-19 which has put the country under lockdown, thereby limiting their ability to canvas for votes.
This was one of the key issues that came out of the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC)’s ordinary virtual meeting Tuesday.
ANC provincial secretary Paseka Nompondo said in a statement the party is considering new ways of reaching out to the people after an election report tabled at the virtual meeting pointed out some of the challenges.
“. . . our election work could not be as effective as expected because of COVID-19,” read part of Nompondo’s report.
“The organisation will employ various methods to implement its election programme.
“We will resume our election work within lockdown regulations by laying the foundation and evaluating all our structures of elections.”
Municipal elections take place every five years in South Africa and the last ones were held in 2016 and the ANC claimed the most seats in municipalities across the province except Metsimaholo Local Municipality where it initially forged a coalition with the SACP.
The coalition has remained rocky and the municipality has since been placed under administration.
Nompondo is however confident the ANC will do well in the election despite the lockdown limitations and other challenges.
“We are certain that, come elections, the ANC will register overwhelming victory . . . We instruct all deployees of the ANC to trace back all areas where commitments were made and attend to them,” said the provincial secretary.
The party is said to have acknowledged in another extensive report presented at the same meeting that COVID-19 had a major impact on its operations as other work had not been done due to the lockdown.
“Structures of the ANC were unable to properly conduct its work due to lockdown regulations,” said Nompondo.
“We urge structures of the ANC to continue to do its work within the prescripts of the lockdown regulations.”
Turning to the provincial economy, he said COVID-19 has placed a serious economic burden on citizens and small businesses in particular.
Nompondo said the sub-committee on economic transformation was tasked to develop a provincial economic recovery plan to be presented to the PEC.
“Government is instructed to prioritise in particular small businesses in government procurement during COVID-19 as part of its efforts to ensure small businesses (are) ignited and survive the pandemic . . .” he said.