ANC, youth league working on weaknesses

The ANC and the ANC Youth League will look at working on the weaknesses within the party’s youth wing.

“The ANC is helping the youth league to deal with its weaknesses, but at the same time consolidate the strength of the youth league going forward,” said Youth League national executive committee (NEC) member Thabo Kupa.

The ANC’s top leadership and the youth league met in Johannesburg yesterday.

“The meeting will reconvene in three weeks. It is an ongoing engagement,” said Kupa.

He would not go into detail about what was discussed at the meeting and said it was an internal matter.

“There is a discussion on a variety of issues,” he said.

Delegates at the ANC’s elective conference in Mangaung last month resolved that the incoming NEC should meet with the youth league to sort out issues between the two.

In his organisational report at the conference, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said the youth league was acting in a similar manner to forces that were against the party.

It was also expected that they would discuss the youth league’s lack of a permanent leader following the expulsion of its president, Julius Malema, last year.

Deputy president Ronald Lamola has led the youth league since then.

Malema sent the ANC conference a letter asking to be reinstated, but at the time, Mantashe said it had been received too late and that the programme had already been adopted.

- Sapa