ANC secretary-general Fikile “Vutha” Mbalula has cautioned the DA not to approach the ANC like they are engaged in a street fight, where trickery and deceit is the order of the day.
The Luthuli House boss was speaking from the party’s head office on the occasion of the outcomes of the National Lekgotla that the organisation held last weekend in Gauteng.
Responding to DA’s opposition to signed bills
Mbalula was responding to DA’s spirited opposition to parliamentary bills that President Cyril Ramaphosa has passed into law, the latest being the Expropriation Act.
The DA has expressed its strong opposition to the new law, fingering the ANC of circumventing dispute resolution platforms set out in the GNU founding document – the statement of intent.
After threatening to go to court, the party has also sought a meeting with Ramaphosa to register their objection to how he as ANC Number 1 deployee does things alongside his party.
Mbalula believes that the DA is taking chances, for nowhere in the statement of intent was it agreed that bills tabled in parliament in the previous all-ANC administration will be thrown away and started from scratch.
The SG explained that the DA had hoped somehow that it will catch the ANC within the GNU in its current form, only to be caught off guard by the several bills that have been passed by parliament and were awaiting Ramaphosa’s signature to becomes law.
DA knew about these impending bills
Mbalula said the DA was there in parliament when these contentious bills — it is now jumping up and down about like popcorns — were processed through parliament all the way to the president’s desk.
Trying to introduce agreements that do not exist about these bills, charged Mbalula, was not going to work because being in a partnership government was not a street fight without rules.
“I do not know what the DA basically wants. We have committed to engaging with partners going forward to talk about the GNU and what their concerns are. And we have explained that transformation is our agenda,” said Mbalula.
“We need to understand that, in our negotiations, we did not have an agreement with the DA that all the bills that were passed by the sixth administration will come to a halt. And we do not have such an agreement and if such a matter had arisen, we would have been clear with the DA that as the ANC we do not agree to that.
Streetfighter tendencies
“We cannot now use GNU for bills that have been passed in parliament to halt progress. If that was a dealbreaker, it would have happened when we were negotiating the GNU. You do not operate like a streetfighter — losing and hoping you will get your opponents on the other side,” Mbalula went on.
“You play your cards open. That is why you must be honest with people you negotiate with. I cannot go to other political parties saying something different. They will say ‘this Mbalula is a trickster, a tsotsi’. This GNU is about interests, and we know the interests DA represents. And we cannot be untruthful to them when we negotiate with a belief that we have a way to get to them. It does not work like that, you become straight.”
Mbalula said the ANC will continue to impose its policies into the GNU this year as will be the case at the Cabinet Lekgotla starting on Wednesday.
Chiefly among those will be to push for transformative policies in all sectors. Such as the economy, education, health and other spheres of government.
