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Jackson Mthembu

Johannesburg — African National Congress leaders and members of alliance partners Cosatu, South African Communist Party, and Sanco will in future have to declare their assets and income, in a bid to stop corruption, they said yesterday.

“The alliance and its components will also institute regular and random life-style audits,” they said in a joint statement.

These were intended to “reassert” the integrity of the alliance by ensuring corruption and factionalism were dealt with decisively.

The parties held a two-day meeting at the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg, which ended on Monday. They discussed the state of the alliance and ways to strengthen it, and the 2016 local government elections.

They agreed to explore the establishment of an “alliance policy institute” to improve policy co-ordination and monitoring, and evaluation of the implementation of alliance decisions.

All parties agreed that the ANC’s decline in the 2016 municipal elections required a different approach, in order to win back support from voters.

They discussed members who broke ranks and called on them to be disciplined and conduct themselves in an exemplary manner.

In an interview with City Press this weekend, ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu called for the party’s national executive members to step down. He said the current leadership “reduced the governing party to something that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth”.

This followed the ANC’s loss of support in the August 3 local government elections, and divisions within the party about the NPA’s decision to charge Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan with fraud.

Meanwhile, President Jacob Zuma says Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s fraud charges were not discussed at a meeting with NPA head Shaun Abrahams at Luthuli House.

Zuma was answering questions from MPs in the National Council of Provinces yesterday.

He said Abrahams was at Luthuli House along with ministers from the justice cluster to discuss “a totally different matter” the day before Gordhan was charged. — News24.