Johannesburg – Gauteng ANC chairperson and premier Panyaza Lesufi has welcomed the resignation of outgoing Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter, whose resignation was announced on Wednesday.
Lesufi blasted the power utility over its failure to deal with load shedding, adding that Eskom has in the past acted as an opposition party to the ANC after it attached assets belonging to one of the municipalities in the province after the municipality had failed to pay its electricity bill.
"We come to you, comrades, and we have characterised Eskom as nothing else but an institution that acts like an opposition party against the African National Congress.
“This opposition party, as I speak to you now, has attached the assets of an ANC-led municipality in Emfuleni. As I speak to you, that municipality has lost all its cars. What does this mean? What it means is that that municipality can’t render services," he said.
Ahead of the 55th National Conference this weekend, Lesufi, who was giving his political report to members of the party on Wednesday, said the party had failed to unite and failed to unify South Africans, adding that the NEC had played a role in sowing the seeds of disunity.
"We are deeply factional as we enter this conference. We enter this conference with a president that has a cloud hanging over his head ... We enter this conference with nothing else but an artificial unity that must go down so that real unity can come.
“We enter this conference with an NEC that has presided over the loss of six metros. We enter this conference with an NEC that is witnessing but doing nothing for voters who need to vote," he said.
The former Gauteng education MEC said the party was going to the conference in a state of paralysis, saying it was the first time in the history of the ANC that it was going into conference without a secretary-general.
"It is an indictment that we go into a national conference with a suspended secretary-general. This is the first time in the history of the ANC.
“As we enter this conference, we enter with an NEC that has failed to provide a document on the July unrest ... We are embarrassed that the NEC has failed us. We arrive at this conclusion because the facts are on the table and we are not taking sides," Lesufi added.
As the conference draws near, with less than 48 hours until the start of the conference set for Nasrec, Lesufi called on the NEC to work towards bringing members of the party together rather than drive them apart.
"This divided NEC, where members of the NEC have clubbed in their own corners, is not good for the ANC. We must urge them to preside over a successful conference. We need to unite, there’s no two ways about it," he said.
The Star