Oblivious Lihelele, a Walking Time-Bomb

The newly elected Free State ANC Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) held its first Lekgotla last weekend at Illanga Estate, Bloemfontein.

While the focus was on what the PEC resolved regarding who is recalled as was expected, it was the remarks made by Polediso Motsoeneng, the provincial secretary that caught our attention.

Before Lekgotla, there was a letter from Motsoeneng inviting Municipal Managers to the party event oblivious to the ongoing court case in Johannesburg High court over ANC’s deployment policy between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the ANC.

The DA wants the court to declare the deployment policy unlawful and judgment has been reserved, that said, the court on Friday ordered the ANC to hand over the minutes, emails, texts, and any other material related to the deployment committee, the ANC has indicated it will appeal the judgment involving minutes and records.

Last year, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo in his report “State Capture” also found the deployment policy to be unlawful, and, strangely, the ANC has not appealed that particular part of the report.

Listening to the remarks by Motsoeneng it’s either he does not care or at worst, he is just oblivious to the level of looking putting his foot in his mouth.

Addressing Lekgotla Motsoeneng specifically, the Director General, Heads of Departments, and Municipal Managers said they have resolved that 50 000 youth must be hired in the next 12 months.

“They will see how they do it but you want 50 000 youth to be employed in the next twelve months.”

A PEC member who spoke on condition of anonymity said the utterances also shocked them.

“Government (not a political party) has a five-year strategic plan which is linked with a political office and in this case 2019 – 2024, our PS was reckless.

A labor expert said this is ill-informed.

“Government is busy talking about the downsizing of the public sector wage bill, here comes our PEC demanding 50 000 more people to be employed, the government should not be the employer but the enabler of employment by the private sector.”

Another source said this sounds more like micromanagement by the new PS.

“The PEC is full of novices and here they come and want to be relevant and micromanage government.”

This supports the view that HoDs and MMs are deployed and last year we reported a meeting between Elsabe Rockman, former Treasury MEC, and IPC deployment committee chair with employees of Sport, Arts, and Recreation.

Maybe just maybe we should ask for minutes of that meeting through PAJA.

It was Ketso Makume, Deputy Chairperson, and Sebongile Besani, the former provincial secretary who saved the day and addressed issues affecting the party and electorate. Makume urged attendees to be like painters and mechanics as they get dirty while painting and fixing cars.

In other news a high court in Eastern Cape dismissed an application by 13 irregularly appointed officials following the report by Public Service Commission in that province, this will be a test for the incoming provincial leadership to address similar appointment in Free State.

Jabu Mbalula, spokesperson for the ANC in Free State didn’t respond to our questions.

Step UP SA News is looking for 6 junior journalists in five districts of Free State as it prepares to print. The two will be based in Bloemfontein and the rest will be in each district.

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