This was the message by the newly elected ANC Gauteng chairperson David Makhura.
Makhura, the Gauteng Premier was addressing delegates at the provincial congress held this past weekend at Irene Lodge.
“We’re going to address the issue of e-tolls once and for all,” he said.
Makhura was supported by his newly elected deputy-chairperson Panyaza Lesufi who also said a task team will be set up to look into the scrapping of e-tolls.
“Regardless of whatever they’ve tried, the reality is that these e-tolls are unpopular with our people. And as a popular movement, led by the views of our own people, how do we go about in the opposite direction of that particular feeling?
We have taken the position of ‘let those e-tolls be terminated’ and let the team that will manage the process engage on those modalities to check cost, the running and all other related matters,” said Lesufi, MEC for Education.
However, OUTA that fiercely opposed the implementation of e-tolls says the decision was merely to win voters in 2019 national general elections.
Meanwhile, the ANC in Gauteng has been slammed for voting back in the controversial Qedani Mahlangu and Brian Hlongwa in the PEC.
According to Makhura, the newly elected ANC Gauteng provincial executive committee says that an integrity committee is working to finalise issues surrounding some of its controversial appointees, including Mahlangu and Hlongwa.
The PEC says the ANC conference doesn’t discuss matters which sit before the integrity committee until they’re completed.
Hlongwa and Mahlangu were re-elected to the Gauteng PEC at the elective conference, two decisions that many have questioned.
The newly elected PEC says that it is focused on reinvigorating the party, cleaning up corruption and, most importantly, improving the lives of the residents of Gauteng.
“If there something that you want to understand on an update, is that this conference said that these matters must be concluded with immediate effect.”
An optimistic Makhura says that the momentum for renewal in the ANC is irreversible.
“And that’s the depth of the unity. There’s not a dissenting voice, even amongst our alliance structures, on those issues. We are at one.”
Makhura says that the new PEC comprises of many young people who will encourage the drive towards socio-economic transformation.
