“Cadres of the revolutionary movement should consciously avoid becoming a center of problem or anything that hinders the progress of the revolution” By Sihle Zikalala

In the recent period, following the ANC KZN 9th Provincial Conference, I have been in consultation with the ANC Provincial Leadership about how to enhance the coordination between the ANC and KZN Provincial Government as we pursue the goals of our revolution to better the lives of the people of our province.

It is my principled position that the ANC remain a strategic center of power which should provide uninterrupted strategic leadership in the movement, the society and government.

As individual members of the ANC, we join the organization voluntarily and with no expectation of material benefit. In joining the ANC we avail our skills and expertise at the disposal of the movement.

It is my sincere conviction that revolutionaries should at no stage be an overburden to the movement. Revolutionaries should always enhance the functionality of the organization and the execution of the revolutionary programme of action.

Once a cadre becomes a center of a matter that does not take forward the execution of the revolution, that member ought to undertake a conscious self-assessment on whether he or she still assist the organisation to implement its programme. Members should avoid become the issue of debates but assist the movement to go forward. In this regard all ANC members are expected to do everything to strengthen our movement and avoid any action that can weaken the organization.

Informed by this conviction, and having undertaken due consultation, I have taken a position to resign the position of the Premier of the KwaZulu – Natal Province. I have taken this decision consciously and expeditiously so that there is no doubt about the strategic direction that the movement and government should be taking going foward.

I do believe that in the period we have been entrusted to serve the people of our province by the ANC, we have honoured our responsibilities. We did our utmost best to advance the goals of the National Democratic Revolution and did our part to accelerate the goal of radical socio-economic transformation.

I wish to thank all the people and sectors that have supported the work of this government in this 6th Administration. I’m grateful for the support we have received from our dearly departed King, His Majesty King Goodwill Zwelithini ka Bhekuzulu. I am thankful to the reigning King MisuZulu ka Zwelithini for the courageous support he has given us since his ascendency to the throne.

I thank, without reservations, all colleagues who are part of the Executive Council for the manner in which we have worked together as a collective, sharing ideas in a comradely spirit and support to each other.

With all due humility I am appreciative of the guidance and support provided to me as the Premier and I am conscious of the fact that all achievements we scored during the period we have been given to serve were largely due to collective effort we all invested towards the development of our province.

I thank the KZN Legislature, in particular the Speaker Honourable Nontembeko Boyce, my comrades and revolutionary activists in the ANC and Leaders of the opposition parties. I thank the pleasant engagement we shared with the Leader of the official opposition Honourable Hlabisa.

I wish to thank all religious leaders from all faith based organisations, I sincere thank the KwaZulu – Natal Christian Council, Hlangana Zion, all leaders from the Shembe Church and all other faith based organisations.

We have enjoyed pleasant support from business community, the co-chair of KZN Growth Coalition Mr Moses Tembe, KZN Economic Council and all chambers of commerce and industries.

I wish to thank the labour unions, the COSATU, the affiliates in the Public Sector and those operating at shop-floor level in various private sector companies.

As always reserving the best for last, I wish to particularly express my great appreciation to my family – my wife, my kids and the my entire family.

I also wish to thank most sincerely all people of the province for the support offered to us during this period. We have always understood that we are nothing but just servants of the people. I extend my heartfelt appreciation to all public servants.

At the beginning of the term of office, we developed strategic objectives and immediately concretized those objectives into key milestones as part of strategic and annual plans of departments. These objectives are:

• Economic Transformation and Job Creation

• Education, skills and health

• Reliable and quality basic services, especially water

• Spatial integration, Human Settlements and efficient local government

• Social cohesion and safe communities

• A capable, ethical and developmental state

• A better Africa and a better world

Notwithstanding our commitment to ensure delivery on these strategic objectives, the current executive had to grapple with catastrophic incidents that befell our country and the province in particular.

From the first year of this term, just as we were beginning to implement our programme of action, we had to deal with the deadliest effects of the Covid-19 virus, which erupted and engulfed the world resulting in successive lockdowns, loss of lives, destruction of the economy and unemployment;

We were affected by the painful arrest of former President Jacob Zuma which left the people divided and wounded as we all felt that President Zuma was not given a fair treatment by judiciary;

We had to contend with the eruption of the July 2021 social unrest which left untold economic damage, causing the loss of more than 350 lives in particular in the Phoenix Massacre as well as Chatsworth and Northdale

While we were trying to recover from the these major incidents, we suffered yet another blow from the April and May 2022 floods, which cost at least 461 lives, destroyed infrastructure and caused further setbacks on the economic front.

Off-course all of these incidents were hard hitting to us as leadership that carried a responsibility to respond and provide support to the affected people and communities. These moments required courageous and decisive leadership to face the raging storms. The severity of such incidents was too unbearable but we soldiered on knowing that ours is the cause to serve the people.

At the beginning of the 6th Administration we prioritized the task of building a capable, ethical and effective state. The first step in pursuit of this objective was to call on all government workers to embrace the principles of Batho Pele as a guiding framework on discipline and conduct expected of them and how to treat people were serve. Subsequent to that we launched Operation Siyahlola to monitor the standard of the services that are given to the people.

In building a capable state, we conducted the skills audit among the public servants to ensure that appropriate skills are deployed where required. We embarked on skills development in partnership with the National School of Governance and build strategic relationship with all tertiary institutions in the province.

When we started this term after 2019 elections, the province had recorded about R12, 4 Billion of irregular expenditure in 2018/2019. It is important to note that irregular expenditure does not automatically means corruption or wasteful expenditure. But it means failure to account and possible mismanagement. In a period of three years we have reduced this to R6,8 Billion and further plans are in place to totally stop irregular expenditure.

When we started this term, only two (2) departments had attained clean audits. Today we as we depart the Premier’s Office has attained its first clean audit in history. In addition, six other departments received cleans audits. We have equally improved overall financial performance of departments. This is a record number of clean audits to be achieved by Provincial Departments.

Notwithstanding the bureaucracy that exist within state institutions, we have laid a firm foundation to fight and eliminate corruption. We acted swiftly against reports of corruption even at the Premier’s Office hence a number of suspended officials and ongoing criminal cases. We took decisive actions on allegations of corruption on the procurements of PPEs during Covid-19 and we were amongst the first to published companies that benefitted on Covid-19 interventions.

One of the strategic tasks we set for ourselves was to ensure economic growth, distribution and creation of jobs. In this regards, we can report that we managed to stop the exodus of disinvestment and encourage expansion of existing companies. The growth in Dube Trade Port and Richards Bay Industrial Development Zone are some of evidence.

I depart this office proud of the work we have achieved in support of small businesses. We have rolled out radical socio-economic transformation interventions such as Operation Vula and black industrialist programme. Through these interventions many small enterprises continue to benefit from government financial and non-financial support. We intensified the support to ensure that blacks are integrated into manufacturing which is a anchor of economy growth and sustainable business trajectory.

For the first time in the history of this province, we established KZN Youth Business Fund dedicated to support young entrepreneurs. This funding has assisted many young people across the province and some are now penetrating the formal economy. The decisive launch of the KZN Youth Business Fund ignited hope and was replicated by some other provinces.

During this period, we have successfully positioned KwaZulu – Natal on a journey to become a real gateway to Africa. We have positioned the province as an integral part of Africa and formed strategic partnership with institutions such as the Secretariat of Intra Africa Trade Zone, the African Export and Import Bank (Afrexim Bank) and African Development Bank. We hope building on these relations our province will enhance economic growth and sustainability.

We are grateful that we have achieved almost a universal access to basic education in the province, and great work has been done to make schools better centers for children to learn and educators to teach. Schools such as Anton Lembede Maths and Science Academy, Mandla Mthethwa Academy in uMkhanyakude and Pholela School of Excellence in Harry Gwala District are standing and living testimonies of a better and quality education that the African National Congress is intending to deliver for all learners irrespective of their location.

We have successful stabilized the leadership of organs tasked to fight crime, but a lot still need to be done to ensure effective policing, and this requires urgent attention on resourcing the police, root-out rotten elements who work with criminals from the police services, improve community participation in policing.

Our commitment to provision of basic services remained high priority. This included the provision of water, electricity, adequate healthcare, roads and houses. Most of these, especially water and roads, will still need attention and we hope the incoming leadership will continue with plans and programmes aimed at ensuring provision of these services to all people.

While many would always criticize the ANC and its government, the truth on perfomance remain expressed through houses that have been delivered, access to social services and access to education. The delivery in these areas attest to the fact that no organisation has a political will and capacity to change the lives of South Africans except the ANC.

I present this statement not as a holistic account on the work done, for the fact that the 6th Administration is still continuing. Leadership is like a relay when one run his mileage and handover to the next till the race is completed.

We have arrived at that time to hand over to the next leadership to steer forward the struggle for the construction of a national democratic society, where there will be no racial nor gender discrimination, where we would have eliminated poverty and achieved economic integration.

At a political level, there are those who have accused us of betraying former President Jacob Zuma. I wish to make it clear that I have supported President Zuma from 14 June 2005 until today. I supported him as a leader and someone who sacrificed his life for South Africa to be liberated. My support has never been personal but always organizational. At no point have I ever tried to get position through being associated with him. Equally I have never badmouthed others because they did not support him.

This deceptive narrative further accuse myself in particular by suggesting that I have aligned myself with President Ramaphosa. It is the tradition of the ANC that dictate that members must always accept and work with the elected leadership whether they have supported the elections of that leadership or not.

The ANC’s principles of organisation democracy and discipline further underline that leaders must lead all members with the same and equal treatment. This is key to ensure unity and cohesion of the ANC. For that, I’m elated that we all appreciate that the ANC is much united than it was between 2015 to 2017.

The journey we traversed from 2018 to the ANC 9th Provincial Conference was not easy but it managed to re-integrate all members of the organisation into one ANC. I have no doubt that there is solid foundation upon which the elected leadership will continue to build on and cement unity of the ANC and that of the society.

Once again, I re-iterate that I have taken the decision to resign not because I’m pushed by the new leadership but simple because of the narrative peddled against me. It has been my revolutionary teaching that a revolutionary duty is served not by allowing personal desires but by serving the organization and the masses it is leading.

I’m happy that I depart the government with no cloud of any allegation. And I hope as cadres we will preserve clean government which focus on the emancipation of the people.

As I alluded earlier, cadres of the revolutionary movement should consciously avoid becoming a center of problem or anything that hinders the progress of the revolution.

I bid you all a fond farewell, especially to you members of the media as well whom we have been with through the many life threatening challenges I alluded to above.

Because we are friends, colleagues and comrades in arms it is possible that we will meet again in the struggle to better to the living conditions of the people of our province, country and the world.

I thank you