ANC not damaged by honest criticism, says Mbalula amid backlash over Ramaphosa, Mantashe comments
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has defended comments made by ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe and President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying the party is not afraid to confront its own weaknesses in public.
The remarks, made separately by the two senior leaders, sparked surprise and concern from both within the party and among members of the public.
Mantashe recently said that the ANC lacks capacity to manage municipalities, stating: “We are very good on singing, but very bad on capacity.”
He was addressing ANC councillors during the party’s nationwide “roll call” event, aimed at accelerating service delivery with accountability ahead of the 2026 local government elections.
“I know that we have a lot of singing councillors, but we have no councils. We all sing well, but capacity dololo,” Mantashe said.
“That is the council we have. Comrades who are councillors, leaders of the ANC, who make noise when a meeting is underway. What kind of leadership is that?”
Ramaphosa, speaking at the same event at the FNB Stadium in Soweto, urged ANC members to learn from municipalities that are performing better, many of which are governed by the Democratic Alliance.
“There’s nothing wrong with competition,” Ramaphosa said. “We need to ask ourselves, what is it that they are doing that is better than what we are doing? We want to go and see what Cape Town is doing. We want to go and see what Stellenbosch is doing.”
“We cannot forever stay at the bottom. It hurts me deeply when I continue to see that our municipalities sometimes tend to move even backwards. And you are the people who can improve that. The audit outcomes are important,” he added.
Ramaphosa also emphasised the need to deploy capable people in local government, saying the country “is not short of people who understand numbers” and called on the party to bring in those with the necessary skills.
Responding to the criticism during an interview with eNCA, Mbalula said these remarks should not be misinterpreted. He said Ramaphosa’s comment was not praise for the DA, but an acknowledgment of the need for improvement.
“The president did not praise the DA,” said Mbalula.
“The ANC is the bigger party in this country. It must not be afraid, including its members must understand, they must not be afraid in the competitive politics, we have to acknowledge the fact that we are not doing well in relation to the Auditor General’s report, and in comparison to our competitors and opponents.
“It is really something that the president said in his statement. It doesn’t augur well, and it doesn’t augur well also for himself.
”And that is the truth, it cannot be good that we have been overtaken by our opponents on a matter like that, notwithstanding the examples the president has given also, that there are good performing municipalities of the ANC. But we are the biggest, and in this instance, we can even do better in that regard,” he said.
Mbalula said the ANC remains committed to internal accountability.
“We are the only party that take up the mirror, look at itself, and even share its own weaknesses with the rest,” he said. “We will never succeed if we mask difficulties, and at the same time, we don’t tell the truth.”
When asked whether the comments may have caused reputational damage to the party, Mbalula rejected the notion.
“It can’t cause a bad dent,” he said. “We have engaged with our members, who are on the ground, front troopers, to basically look in a different direction and positively so see, what it is that we need to do to master the plan of the ANC in terms of delivery.”
He added that the party’s critics were focused on minor issues rather than the real challenges affecting citizens.
“Our opponents and distractors, because they’ve got nothing to attack us about in terms of issues that face our people, are simply dealing with matters of comments,” he said.
hope.ntanzi@iol.co.za
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