Outgoing North West premier Job Mokgoro’s alleged defiance and failure to consult on deployments in the running of government has been cited as his undoing as the party said it no longer needed him at the helm of the troubled province.
Mokgoro, who was brought in to restore failed governance in the province following the removal of Supra Mahumapelo in 2018, was yesterday unceremoniously shown the door by the ANC interim provincial committee (IPC).
The IPC instructed Mokgoro to tender his resignation as both premier and the party’s member of the provincial legislature, and announced Struggle veteran Bushy Maape as the premier-elect.
Both ANC alliance partners — Cosatu and the SACP — agreed for Mokgoro’s removal, citing his “lack of consultation and deliberately sidelining the ANC and its alliance partners in crucial decisions on how to run the province and on deployments”.
SACP provincial secretary Madoda Sambatha, who also served as health MEC under Mokgoro, said the SACP accepted Mokgoro’s removal as his failure to consult the ANC provincial leadership and the alliance had deeply soured their relations and undermined efforts to stabilise governance.
“There was a permanent war between the premier and the ANC, and the ANC would not be consulted when he made crucial decisions. He was operating outside the processes of the ANC and the alliance,” he said.
Sambatha said the party hoped that Maape’s appointment would signal an end to the chopping and changing of premiers in the province.
“His appointment must signal a change in the operation of appointing premiers in the province. We cannot be the only province that has premiers who are never allowed to finish their term of office,” Sambatha said.
Cosatu provincial secretary Kopano Konopi said Mokgoro had become an academic who placed emphasis only on his constitutional powers to exercise power despite his failure to deliver on governance reforms.
“He came in as a caretaker for the purpose of intervening in the governance crisis we have been having. The problems have not moved an inch in the right direction since he took over. The problem now was that he wanted to over-emphasise his constitutional powers and forgot that he had been appointed by the ANC and operated outside its mandate,” he said
Both the SACP and Cosatu said Maape, a former Robben Island political prisoner, was experienced both political and administratively and that they hoped he would help steer the troubled province to stability.
IPC coordinator Hlomane Chauke said the provincial structure was awaiting Mokgoro’s resignation letter as both premier and ANC MPL as all his positions would be taken over by Maape.
“When we have identified that we have made the wrong deployment, the ANC must not shy away, it must move in and remove that person for the sake of our people,” he said.
Chauke said the IPC, which has been accused of political interference in government by Mokgoro’s supporters, was also planning to target troubled municipalities and remove “bad deployments”.
“There are municipalities that have totally collapsed in the province and these are troikas (mayors, speakers and chief whips) that we are saying must go. They are fighting with the IPC,” he said.
Mokgoro did not respond to Sowetan's requests for comment. He has been at loggerheads with the IPC since last year and earlier this year he and other four MPLs were accused of voting with the opposition in the legislature for their preferred chair of chairs position.
Several ANC supporters opposed to his removal staged a protest outside the ANC provincial office in Mahikeng yesterday, where they burnt tyres and vowed to resist his removal from office, which they referred to as dictatorship by the ANC.
When asked about what directives Mokgoro had defied, Chauke would only say the ANC expected its deployees to toe the line and that Mokgoro was also facing disciplinary action “for not carrying the party mandate”.
Who is Bushy Maape?
Bushy Maape is a former Robben Island prisoner whose political stature is set to make him acceptable to both former premier Supra Mahumapelo’s supporters and the ANC’s interim provincial committee (IPC) that appointed him. Maape, 64, was imprisoned in the 1980s for ANC activities and he later served as chairperson of the party’s former Kgalagadi region in the 1990s. He also joined the public service in the province’s planning and development unit. He holds degrees from Unisa and the University of the Western Cape and also served as a member of the municipal demarcation board.
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