Simon Nare
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has unveiled the reconfigured Gauteng provincial task team, led by Premier Panyaza Lesufi as convenor of the 45-member team, that will oversee the party’s structures in the province until elected leadership is chosen at a lawful provincial conference.
Mbalula, in a communique copied to national officials and other structures, said the task team had been endorsed by the national executive committee, the party’s highest decision-making body between conferences, and was assembled after the term of the previous team had expired.
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The elected provincial executive committee was replaced by an interim task team in February 2025 after the ANC’s poor performance in the May 2024 national and provincial elections.
Mbalula said the previous task team’s term of office had expired “by effluxion of time. Pending the constitution of a successor body in accordance with the constitution”.
He added that the task team had continued in office in the interim period as authorised by the NEC to ensure organisational continuity in the province.
The secretary-general said that after considering his office’s report, the recommendations of the national officials and national working committee, and in line with the party’s constitution, the NEC had decided to reconfigure the task team.
“(W)ith effect from the date of this letter, and in terms of Rule 12.2 of the Constitution, to constitute a new Provincial Task Team of the African National Congress in Gauteng Province, comprising the comrades named in the Schedule to this letter, to discharge the powers and functions of a provincial executive committee of the African National Congress in the Province until such time as a credible, lawful and properly constituted Provincial Conference of the African National Congress in the Province is convened to elect a new provincial leadership collective,” said the letter.
The new PTT has been directed to lead the ANC in Gauteng through the 2026 local government elections and thereafter to convene the next provincial conference within a period to be determined by the NEC on the recommendation of the national officials.
The task team’s top five were appointed as follows: convenor Panyaza Lesufi, deputy convenor Mandla Nkomfe, coordinator Sochayile “Socks” Khanyile, deputy coordinator Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko and fundraiser Tasneem Motara.
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The additional members were drawn proportionately from across the five regions and the letter states that the task team will function “in concert with ex officio leadership of the movement in the province in line with the constitution”.
It will be supported by sectoral leaders and permanent invitees named as Pastor Nonqaba Masonkuthu, Trevor Fowler, Craig Cornish and Greg Schneemann, as well as the provincial chairpersons and provincial secretaries of the ANC Women’s League, ANC Youth League and ANC Veterans’ League.
