The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has said, despite being rejected in three of the last five by-elections in KwaZulu-Natal, it will not be angry at the people of the province.
Instead, it would continue to serve them.
This was said by Mike Mabuyakhulu, the coordinator of the provincial task team, earlier on Thursday in Durban during a doorstep interview ahead of the team’s meeting with ANC Secretary-General, Fikile Mbalula. Mbalula was meeting with the team to get feedback on its work since it took office in February this year.
Electoral loss, non-payment of service providers
Mabuyakhulu was responding to several questions that were fielded by the media. And the question of electoral drubbing by its splinter party, the MKP (Umkhonto Wesizwe Party), came up.
“We have done our analysis, we have understood what has been happening on the ground. Of course we are democrats, we have gone back to those communities. Because we have a campaign called Ukhongolose ubuyela kubantu (The ANC is going back to the people).
“We have now already gone to those communities. And we have met with them because we are still in control in those communities. In those local governments we are still going to deliver services to our people. The ANC has taken a position that we will not be angry with our people, hence we are going to serve them,” Mabuyakhulu responded on behalf of the ANC.
Blamed new accounting system “glitch”, despite being broke
The ANC team was also asked about the failures of the provincial Departments of Education and that of Health. Both are led by ANC cadres, Sipho Hlomuka and Nomagugu Simelane-Mngadi, and they failed to pay service providers.
Mabuyakhulu took the questions and answered them. He blamed the migration from BAS (Basic Accounting System) 5 to BAS 6 for the delay in paying service providers. This is despite official and publicly available evidence pointing out that the departments are broke.
Last month the provincial treasury instructed Hlomuka’s department to stop issuing tenders because it was technically broke. It also stopped it from undertaking new projects due to its money issues.
Cash flow challenges
The department later told unpaid school nutrition service providers that its challenges are with the BAS system. It said nothing about the unavailability of funds to pay them.
A written reply, signed by Simelane-Mngadi on April 24 2025, was sent to the DA in the provincial legislature on Monday. In it, the department admitted that it owes service providers R1,7-billion. It cited “cash flow challenges”. There is nowhere in the letter where it said it had issues with BAS.
“The provincial government of KwaZulu-Natal does have a challenge of the issues of BAS. This is because most of this problem has been caused by the moving from level 4 to level 6 of BAS. And these are simply not the departmental problems that have occurred for these two departments.
“The [National] Treasuryhas had these glitches with the system. And I think even the Treasury in this province confirms that these are glitches that are not the creation of the two departments, namely education and health. So, I think we should put this matter into perspective,” Mabuyakhulu said regarding the struggles of the departments.
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