ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula briefed the media at Luthuli House on Tuesday.

• With 163 days until the 4 November local elections, the ANC’s NEC made local government reform its singular focus.
• The NEC confirmed that eight priority municipalities currently under interministerial committee management will undergo performance turnaround strategies.
• ANC deployees in government have been directed to prioritise roads, water, and electricity projects.

With 163 days to the local government elections, the ANC has declared fixing local government its singular and non-negotiable priority, backing that declaration with a raft of decisions from its national executive committee (NEC) meeting that ended on Sunday.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula delivered the post-NEC meeting statement at Luthuli House on Tuesday in a characteristically combative tone, framing the 4 November poll as both a test of the party’s renewal and a referendum on whether it can translate policy into the lived experience of ordinary South Africans.

“The ANC enters that contest with the disciplined work of its structures in every region, every province, and every branch, focused on the outcome, a credible, capable, and renewed ANC at the site of every community of our republic,” Mbalula said.

He added that the NEC received a political overview from ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, which centred on the theme of fixing local government.

“The meeting adopted decisions on the reports of the national working committee, the electoral committee, the integrity commission, and consolidated provincial weekly status reports.”

Eight municipalities in the crosshairs

Mbalula said one of the NEC’s key resolutions was to confirm eight priority municipalities currently under active interministerial committee management.

These municipalities, widely regarded as among the country’s most dysfunctional, will be subject to a performance turnaround strategy.

Mbalula did not say which municipaliities were a priority.

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He added that the NEC had directed the North West provincial executive committee to table a stabilisation plan, acknowledging the province’s persistent instability and governance failures.

The NEC ratified the local government action plan, now six months into operation, affirming its current pillar ratings.

Mbalula said the NEC subcommittee on local government interventions had been given 14 days to segment its work into short-, medium-, and long-term horizons.

This move signals a shift from broad-stroke policy to operational accountability.

No community without water

Mbalula said the ANC had directed its deployees in government to prioritise service delivery.

He added:

“These are the immediate things that touch the lives of our people. Where water scarcity is acutely felt, the NEC resolved that there should be no community without water, and the implementation of underground [borehole] and spring water connections must be rolled out with immediate effect.”

The resolution, if implemented, would represent a significant intervention in communities that have waited years, in some cases decades, for access to water.