THE African Independent Congress (AIC) has finalised its coalition agreement with the ANC, despite not trusting the governing party.
The AIC distrusts the ruling party because, after a meeting with President Jacob Zuma in 2014 in which he said he would do something about the Matatiele demarcation issue, he never did.
Matatiele was moved from KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape in 2005. The next year the Constitutional Court found the move was invalid because there had been insufficient public consultation.ANC may still govern, but will need to remake itself in order to do so
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In a 2009 referendum, people voted to return Matatiele to KwaZulu-Natal. However, nothing has happened since then, even though the AIC has met Zuma about the matter, the AIC says.
The AIC had proposed four conditions for a coalition with the ANC, which included moving Matatiele back to KwaZulu-Natal.
The AIC will vote with the ANC in Ekurhuleni, along with the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) and the Patriotic Alliance (PA), to give it control of the municipality.
“We warned them to say, we don’t trust them, as I indicated to the president himself … he didn’t deliver on his promise to us, which is the bone of contention,” AIC president Mandla Galo said.
“I was saying to the secretary-general (Gwede Mantashe) that, ‘We are warning you that if these kind of processes do not kick in as soon as possible we will pull out of this kind of coalition.’”
The City of Ekurhuleni postponed its inaugural council to next Tuesday without providing any reasons.
The council meeting was scheduled to take place on Friday‚ but an urgent communication was sent to inform councillors and the public of the delay.
TMG Digital has established that the postponement was due to disagreements between the ANC and AIC.
Galo confirmed that the AIC was unhappy with the written agreement sent to the party from the ANC.
He said it was “not according to what we had discussed” and was “too general”.
The AIC was unhappy with the ANC’s time frames to deal with the Matatiele issue.
Galo said Mantashe had contacted him.
“Then we agreed he will commit in writing that the processes (relating to Matatiele) will start immediately after the installation of the municipalities, which means therefore it could be early September,” he said.
Galo said he was informed by the ANC on Wednesday that as soon as municipalities were finalised, the Matatiele process would “kick in”, but they needed time to speak to the provincial legislatures.
A constitutional amendment is needed for Matatiele to return to KwaZulu-Natal.
The legislatures of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal would have to approve the proposal for the change of the provincial boundary after consultations with the public.
Parliament would then need to pass an amendment bill for this to take place.
The amendment bill proposing the changes to the provincial boundary has to be approved by a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
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