The ANC’s membership management system is back online and fully functional, following a successful transfer from its previous developer to the ANC, as well as the new IT company that now supports the ANC.
Last Tuesday, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula sent a letter to provinces, regions, and branches to announce the transition and the system’s full operation.
The updated system aims to reduce gatekeeping and allow members to manage their own memberships. It focuses on transparency and simple access to membership cards.
New system is more up to date and effective
In his letter, Mbalula noted that during the system’s downtime, real-time recording of member payments was not possible. The party is updating the system with these payments to ensure members’ statuses were accurate.
“We are currently loading all payments that were affected during the period when the system was offline and inoperative. And we request our members who may be affected by this to regularly check their status. [They can check] on their members’ portal in the ANC membership system,” Mbalula said.
Members who may be affected by this must regularly check their status. They can do so on their members’ portal in the ANC membership system. Also, all branch admin roles had been revoked in the membership management system. This is to allow a process of verification and confirmation of the roles to be allocated, he said.
To proceed with verification, ANC branches must submit the updated details. These are details of branch secretaries and branch task team coordinators. These and any branch executive committee member responsible for the branch portal. They can be submitted to regional and provincial secretaries.
Verification system
Provincial secretaries will then forward these updates to the National Organising and Membership department. This will be for final verification, and once verified, the provincial secretaries will forward them. They will send the updated lists to the National Organising and Membership department, said Mbalula.
He stated that this process ensured the accuracy of the membership database. It will allow the ANC to manage its structure effectively and maintain clear communication.
Past ANC conferences highlighted the need for a reliable membership system for the party’s renewal.
Despite boasting over 1 million members, the party faced many issues. These include low community participation and undemocratic practices like membership buying. Also a slow membership card system.
System overhaul to facilitate recruitment, political education
There were also concerns about declining member quality and discipline. And a lack of diversity and gatekeeping that blocked new members.
The ANC aimed to improve the membership system. This as well as active recruitment, political education for members, and turning branches into community development hubs. The goal was to build an engaged, disciplined membership that reflects the ANC’s diverse and inclusive mission.
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