Luthuli House is expected to remove ANC veteran Jeff Radebe as the convenor of the KwaZulu-Natal provincial task team. He is expected to be replaced by KwaZulu-Natal party heavyweight Mike Mabuyakhulu.
These changes are likely to be discussed at the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) meeting on Monday.
“We are removing Jeff. We feel he’s done more damage than good. So we will bring in Mabuyakhulu as the convenor of the new provincial task team,” said a senior ANC national executive committee (NEC) source.
This decision comes as Luthuli House plans to reconstitute the provincial task teams for both KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in preparation for the upcoming local government elections. The two provinces will head into the election campaign without elected structures — after failing to meet the March 31 deadline to convene their provincial conferences.
These are also the two provinces that suffered the biggest decline in the most recent national and provincial elections:
- in KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC dropped from 55.4% in 2019 to 17.6% in 2024; while
- in Gauteng the party went from 53.2% in 2019 to 36.4% in 2024.
The disastrous showing came against the backdrop of the ANC losing its majorities in critical metropolitan municipalities, including Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni in Gauteng and eThekwini in KwaZulu-Natal, in the local polls in 2021.
According to insiders, Mabuyakhulu will be replaced by Siphile Mdaka, a former regional secretary of the ANC’s Nokuhamba Nyawo region and the current mayor of the uMkhanyakude municipality
It was the party’s dismal showing in the 2024 polls that led the NEC to disband its KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provincial executive committees (PECs) and instead install provincial task teams, in what ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa termed a “reconfiguration”.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the NEC brought in Radebe to lead the task team, with Mabuyakhulu as co-ordinator, while Gauteng saw veteran Amos Masondo brought in to lead the structure.
But Luthuli House has been unimpressed with these task teams, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, with ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula labelling the structure there a “Tazz” rather than the “Ferrari” they thought they had installed.
At the time, Mbalula said the party was of the view that the KwaZulu-Natal task team had all but failed, because those who led it were focused on internal squabbles about who would be elected to lead the province when it finally went to conference instead of concentrating on fixing what was broken.
“We thought we were bringing in a Ferrari, but I think now that it is a [Toyota] Tazz, and we need to get out of that particular situation. We have not been doing well,” Mbalula said at the party’s national general council in December.
“In KZN, we disbanded a structure because we were facing an existential crisis there — a tsunami," he said. “But what do people do when we have given them a task? They start fighting over who should lead [instead of attending to] the task we gave them.”
According to insiders, Mabuyakhulu will be replaced by Siphile Mdaka, a former regional secretary of the ANC’s Nokuhamba Nyawo region and the current mayor of the uMkhanyakude municipality.
Gauteng did come to us about the difficulty they are facing around passing the budget, and they were given a specific mandate. This Monday we will reflect on that mandate and what happened to it, and whether or not it was followed to the letter
— Fikile Mbalula, ANC secretary-general
The name of James Nxumalo, the former SACP chair in KwaZulu-Natal, has also been raised as a possible co-ordinator or deputy co-ordinator, but several leaders at the national level and in KwaZulu-Natal are not convinced he can run the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal at this critical point.
“We are thinking of bringing [in] Mdaka or James Nxumalo as the co-ordinator taking over from Mabuyakhulu. Nxumalo is that fellow who was in the SACP leadership in KwaZulu-Natal but was disbanded after he told [SACP general secretary] Solly Mapaila that all of [these issues] about contesting elections [were] pure madness,” said an NEC member.
“Everyone seems to be leaning towards Mdaka, based on discussions that took place on the sidelines of the special NEC, and for Mabuyakhulu to be moved to the head of the table,” they added.
In Gauteng, the Sunday Times understands the NWC will also discuss the recent provincial executive reshuffle by premier Panyaza Lesufi under an agenda item assessing the effectiveness of the task teams in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Lesufi is expected to come under the microscope for appointing an EFF member to head the finance department. His decision to remove Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko as health MEC is also expected to be scrutinised, with Mbalula saying the party will have to assess whether Lesufi followed its instructions or did his own thing.
“Gauteng did come to us about the difficulty they are facing around passing the budget, and they were given a specific mandate. This Monday we will reflect on that mandate and what happened to it, and whether or not it was followed to the letter,” Mbalula said at the special NEC meeting on Friday.
“This Monday we will give a report to the officials with regard to the outcome of that mandate that was given to the comrades in Gauteng.”
A senior ANC NEC source said Lesufi’s future as the co-convenor of the provincial task team is hanging in the balance, especially after his reshuffle.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.