The ANC's national executive committee (NEC) lekgotla, which starts on Friday, provides the new party leadership with its first real opportunity to put its policy stamp on the country, but budgetary and statutory constraints will force some painful compromises. Decisions on policy were taken at the party's national conference in December. Now the leaders must find a way - and the money - to implement them.
Among these decisions are the controversial plan to disband the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA) Directorate Special Operations (the Scorpions) by June; providing free education to the poor up to undergraduate level; expanding "no-fee" schools to 60 percent by 2009; extending child support grants from 14 to 18 years; and providing antiretroviral treatment at all health facilities. Someone is going to have to pay. And although the newly empowered Left has long objected to President Thabo Mbeki and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's budget surplus, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said this week the party would not deliberately eradicate that surplus in pursuit of greater social spending.
Most of the policy decisions are not new - some date back to the national conference of 1997 - but ANC leaders came under renewed pressure in Polokwane to speed up implementation. NEC members, ministers, directors-general and other government officials involved in policy implementation will therefore meet over the next three days to find a way to do this. The meeting takes place amid great division and uncertainty - government officials fear for their positions.
The new party leadership under Jacob Zuma will be imposing ANC policy on a government led by Mbeki, who is still smarting from his defeat in Polokwane. High on the list of things to do will be to decide the future of the Scorpions. The ANC plan involves moving Scorpions investigators back to the SAPS and sending its prosecutors to the NPA, effectively disbanding the crack crime-fighting unit. But this will not be as easy as it sounds.
Scorpions investigators are governed by the NPA Act (and derived regulations). The police are governed by the Public Service Act. Moving them to the SAPS will require a new law - something that will not be achieved within the six-month deadline. Since Scorpions investigators are better paid than their counterparts in the SAPS, they are unlikely to accept the unilateral amendment of their service conditions should they be incorporated into the SAPS. This also presents problems in terms of labour law. Similarly, SAPS officers are unlikely to accept a dual pay structure within the police force. It is hard to see how the party will get around these issues, and they will probably not be resolved by June.
In other policy, the party has recognised that the poor are likely to be hardest hit by the effects of climate change and committed itself to treat this issue as "a new threat on a global scale". The suggestion to make antiretroviral treatment available at all government medical institutions will no doubt be welcomed, but implementation will be hampered by costs and the lack of trained health care workers. The plan to classify HIV and Aids as a notifiable disease is likely to spark heated debate in Midrand.
The party also plans to scrap the unpopular floor-crossing legislation and develop a "regulatory architecture" for private funding of political parties.
The decision to establish a statutory Media Appeals Tribunal to compliment existing self-regulatory mechanisms in the print media environment will also be discussed.
Source: IoL
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