No decision on Limpopo procurement - ANC

The newly-established ANC provincial task team (PTT) in Limpopo has not made a decision to take over procurement in the provincial government, the ruling party said on Sunday. African National Congress spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the party investigated media reports that the newly-established ANC PTT of Limpopo had decided to take over the responsibility of government procurement and appointments. “We have been assured by the PTT that such a decision has not been taken nor such intention communicated to anybody by the PTT,” Mthembu said. “We are satisfied with the explanation we were given by the PTT and we express our disappointment at those who consciously spread malicious lies meant to discredit the PTT.”

Mthembu said the view of the African National Congress was that government was the only duly authorised body that could engage in contractual transactions that included procurement and employment of public servants as outlined in relevant prescripts. “It therefore cannot be true that any ANC office... has taken over the responsibility for issuing out tenders and employment of any one in government. We dismiss this with the contempt it deserves,” he said. On Friday the PTT announced that it had imposed a moratorium on filling mayoral and council vacancies in the Limpopo government. The move was part of efforts to improve governance and root out corruption.

Other PTT measures were that mayors and municipalities submit a report to the PTT dating from 2011 Ä after local government elections Ä to demonstrate how they had met their goals. “We wanted to see from those reports how the ANC can intervene or assist government,” provincial spokesman Sipho Dikgale said. The reports the PTT requested were not on tenders that had been awarded, as reported, but were overall reports on how municipalities were managed. Last month, the provincial executive committee (PEC) was dissolved after a decision taken by the ANC's national executive committee. At the time, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said Limpopo's PEC was dissolved because of its “un-ANC behaviour and institutionalised factional conduct”. Mantashe said dissolving the PEC would not affect government positions.

Mthembu said the role of the PTT was to ensure that the ANC remained the accounting centre in policy implementation for the provincial government; as well as to rebuild ANC structures in preparation for a provincial conference of the ANC in Limpopo within nine months. “We want to re-assure the public that the ANC at all levels understands its role when it comes to governance in relation to its representatives in government,” he said.