Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma, supported by the ANC's national executive committee (NEC), has taken his toughest stand yet against the ANC's left-wing alliance partners, trade federation Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP).

Zuma has come out in full support of Trevor Manuel, Minister in Charge of Planning, and his proposal for a national planning commission advised by a panel of "external experts".

The NEC meeting dismissed Cosatu's alternative to Manuel's Green Paper on national strategic planning, which aimed to sideline Manuel by putting Zuma or his deputy Kgalema Motlanthe in charge of the planning commission.

While Cosatu had also opposed Manuel's plan for the planning commission to be advised by a panel of independent experts, the trade federation's alternative proposal said that clusters of cabinet ministers should advise the commission.

Following a marathon ANC leadership meeting this weekend, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said the NEC had considered appointing cabinet ministers to the commission, but did not do so out of concerns about "turf battles".

While the NEC's decision is expected to give more clarity to the work of parliament's ad hoc committee of MPs considering the Green Paper, Cosatu was not prepared to comment on the NEC's stand. It did say, however, it would be "taking the matter up" with the ANC.

'Mandate of one'

The NEC's stand is likely to make for a tense summit between the ANC and Cosatu this weekend when the parties meet for a summit on economic policy.

Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said although Manuel's strategic planning Green Paper essentially describes a planning process built on consultation and consensus, Cosatu is concerned about Manuel's tendency to want to accumulate power for himself.

Labour and communist party allies of the ANC, he said, are concerned that the planning commission, which will inevitably impinge on economic policy making, will become the "mandate of one" person - Manuel.

Significantly, the alternative planning structure proposed by Cosatu and the SACP also carved a specific and prominent role for Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel in the state's planning and economic policy making functions.

Zuma has been promising to give more clarity as to what role Patel will be playing in economic policy making.

But, nine months after forming his cabinet and promising Cosatu that its cabinet deployee Patel would be given a key economic policy role, Zuma has yet to provide the promised clarity on how this is actually going to work, considering that this is the primary domain of the National Treasury.

- Fin24.com