THE ANC is contemplating
dramatic changes to the country’s constitution, including scrapping the
“sunset clauses” and changing the powers of the Reserve Bank and
provinces.
City Press is in possession of draft policy documents
that will be distributed to the party’s branches tomorrow ahead of its
policy conference in June.
The documents are likely to shape the
direction of government programmes if adopted at the ANC’s national
conference in December.
In a section on strategy and tactics
titled The second transition, the ANC said the constitution of 1996
“may have been appropriate for a political transition, but it has proven
inadequate and even inappropriate for a social and economic
transformation phase”.
Other points to be discussed include:
» The fact that people think the party has lost its moral compass, represents a self-serving elite and is soft on corruption;
» The party is facing a “crisis of credibility” and people are beginning to doubt its capability to deliver social and economic change;
» The principle of ubuntu should be introduced to the school curriculum; and
» HIV/Aids should be made a notifiable disease.
The
ANC also criticised government communicators for not effectively
conveying service delivery successes and said terminology used by
Planning Minister Trevor Manuel’s National Planning Commission is in
conflict with that of the party.
The commission speaks of a “capable
state” while the ANC wants a “developmental state” that drives and
controls economic growth.
On the ANC Youth League, the party said its relationship with the youth wing is important and should be “debated openly”.
The
ANC proposes recruiting children for the ANC from the day they are
born, establishing a state-owned publishing company to iron out problems
with textbook distribution, introducing compulsory community service
for all university graduates and pushing ahead with a media appeals
tribunal.
The party will also discuss introducing a black economic empowerment code for the print media sector.
The
party states that South Africa’s “first transition”, which it calls a
“political transition”, was about finding a national consensus and a
“framework based on the sunset clauses of the negotiations”.
The sunset
clauses relate primarily to land and property ownership. But these are
proving “inadequate and even inappropriate for a social and economic
transformation phase”, or the “second transition”, which South Africa is
entering.
Constitutions are “living documents and reflect the stage of development of a given society”, the ANC said.
Therefore,
“there may well be elements of our constitution that require review
because they may be an impediment to social and economic
transformation”.
This includes the “narrow mandate of the Reserve
Bank or the relationship between and powers of the different spheres of
government”.
Economist Iraj Abedian said the constitution
protects the independence of the Reserve Bank and scrapping this would
give politicians, like ministers, room to interfere.
Some in the ANC
have been calling for the scrapping of inflation targeting and a
weakening of the rand to, among others, boost mining exports.
“This could affect economic stability negatively,” Abedian said.
Amending the powers of the different spheres of government would give national government the power to intervene in provinces.
Provinces
have already lost the power to distribute social grants, and once the national health insurance is in place, they will lose the power to
administer health as well.
The ANC also does some introspection,
admitting that its “moral authority” and that of its leaders is being
“called into question” and that it is “either framed as having lost its
moral compass or as representing a self-serving elite”.
The
party said it is being seen, from the outside, as a “neo-patrimonial
political machine to distribute power and resources among ourselves”.
It
said even though much of the corruption has been exposed by measures
the ANC itself has put into place, “we continue to appear soft on
corruption”.
The ANC acknowledged the necessity of renewing
itself, because it is facing a “crisis of credibility”.
“Doubts are
beginning to creep in” among voters about whether the party can still
deliver the promised changes in the next few decades.
The party
also asks whether it can still call itself as a liberation movement, or
whether it is increasingly becoming a political party.
“The
Mangaung conference (in December) must take bold and comprehensive
decisions around the renewal of the movement over the next two decades,”
it said.
- City Press