Pic: Supplied
Members of the Democratic Alliance staged a picket outside the International Convention Centre in East London on Sunday where the ANC Provincial Executive Committee was holding a lekgotla.
A lekgotla is a meeting called by government to discuss strategy planning.
The problem that the DA said it had with the event was the invitation the ANC had extended to certain metro and district municipal managers.
DA councillor Sue Bentley, who was there, said it blurred the lines between party and state.
“The ANC is having a lekgotla here and municipal managers and district managers have been invited, which is utterly unacceptable because they [the mangers] should be apolitical,” Bentley said.
“This is the whole problem with cadre deployment in our country and the reason so many municipalities are collapsing because these managers have to dance to the tune of the ANC.
We are picketing to say that state and party should be separated!”
Meanwhile ANC spokesperson Gift Nqondi said the lekgotla brought together the party's leagues, alliance partners, and deployees in national, provincial and local government.
He said the lekgotla would assess government progress in delivering on ANC priorities, which include job creation, elimination of poverty, and reducing inequality.
Nqondi said it will also further give guidance on focus areas to ANC deployees in government, ahead of the planning processes for the new financial year.
But Bentley said be that as it may, the municipal officials should’ve never not been invited.
