Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe is expected to visit Welkom, in the Free State, on Saturday (9/9) to address hundreds of people on the party’s five-year plan on behalf of the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa. He arrived in New Delhi, India, on Friday (8/9) to participate in the G20 Leaders’ Summit scheduled for 9 - 10 September 2023.

In his capacity as the ANC leader, Ramaphosa kicked off what could be outlined as election campaigning on Saturday (2/9) at Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto, Gauteng. Instead of adding to the promises previously made, he detailed the promises that the party is yet to achieve. 

Mantashe, also the National Chairperson of the African National Congress, is expected to give an outline on how far they are on implementing the promises they made in 2019.

With at least nine months left before the 2024 national elections, an undertaking was made at Soweto that the party will deliver on the outstanding promises made in 2019 within the remaining months. In the next months, Ramaphosa said he would deal with these issues:
•Deal firmly with load-shedding;
•Establish monitoring mechanisms and provide reports on the maintenance and delivery of essential services in municipalities;
•Implement significant measures in the 36 municipalities that regularly fail to pay their employees; and
•Urgently intervene to prevent the collapse of the Post Office and the SABC.

ANC 2019 Manifesto Review is set to take place nationwide in all 9 provinces. We will tomorrow report back to the people in the Free State Province. Ours is a #ANCManifesto developed through extensive consultation & participation with the people #2019ANCManifestoReview pic.twitter.com/uX9oHqLifP

— Gwede Mantashe (@GwedeMantashe1) September 8, 2023

In retrospect of the 2019 pledges, the ANC had centered its campaign on six key pillars, which included economic transformation, social change, anti-corruption efforts, and strengthening government capacity. The ANC had only fulfilled 10 out of 20 commitments related to economic transformation. The party also fell short on social transformation, as out of 51 commitments, only around 15 had been successfully accomplished.

Additionally, the ANC had not succeeded in eliminating the bucket toilet system, some areas still lacked electricity connections for households, and their goal of increasing housing access remained unmet, with only approximately 100,000 title deeds issued in the past five years.

OFM News/Tshehla Koteli