Give us more time to serve you, Panyaza Lesufi tells Gauteng residents

Gauteng premier and ANC provincial chair Panyaza Lesufi on Wednesday said he needed more time to continue his work in the province.

He said he had achieved a lot in the 18 months he had spent at the helm. 

Listing some of his achievements, he said he had created more than 100,000 new jobs, installed CCTVs in the City of Johannesburg to fight crime, employed crime wardens and brought in three new helicopters used in crime-fighting. 

Lesufi on Wednesday cast his vote at Thuto Ke Maatla Engineering School of Specialisation in Thembisa.

Though the ANC has not named any of its premier candidates, Business Day understands that there was consensus in the ANC, both in the province and national, that Lesufi should be installed as premier should the party win the elections.

He said the party under his leadership needed more time in government to push on with initiatives it had undertaken.

“Well, I had 18 months, and within 18 months as I’m speaking to you, we’ve 105,000 people that are in jobs that were not there, in that 18 months there are people who didn’t have transformers; we put them in, we have brought almost 100MW new energy for Gauteng,” Lesufi said.

“So we just need time to expand on those things, but we really believe as the ANC we have the experience, the ideas, the resources and skill to ensure that we work on those things.”

One of the biggest criticisms of the Gauteng leadership is on crime. Lesufi said he was losing sleep over this.

“The issue of crime preoccupies my mind. If there is one thing that makes me lose sleep, it is crime,” he said.

“And it’s not that it cannot be defeated. I really believe that we are using all methods, and I’m on record on the new ways that I feel that we can fight crime. I’m on record on the resources we allocated to fight crime. Eighteen months ago there were no crime wardens in our province. Eighteen months ago there were no CCTV cameras in the townships. We didn’t have a police van in each community. Eighteen months ago we didn’t have three helicopters.”

Reflecting on the ANC’s campaign ahead of this election, Lesufi said this was the most difficult. He said he had been part of the ANC election machinery since 1994 but none had been tougher.

This, he said, was because the ANC was self-correcting and renewing itself while still having to contest the election.

“Indeed this campaign was very tough and difficult. I was a mere agent of the ANC in 1994, I’ve seen all the elections. But this one is very difficult because the ANC was changing the engine of the aeroplane while it was airborne,” he said.

“We have to elevate renewal of the ANC while at the same time we had to contest elections and we paid the price, and that price we have not recovered.”

He gave an example of the 2021 local government election, which the ANC went into while it was being dissected at the Zondo commission that was looking into allegations of state capture.

“I think we are the only country that in the middle of elections, for local government election, that we had a commission of inquiry about corruption, in the middle of an election, and we paid the price,” he said.

“And because of the price, people are emboldened because it was a sliding scale. Therefore this means this is contested where we have managed to really clean ourselves. Those who don’t agree with renewal formed various other political parties and [other] are no longer part of our organisation.”

Lesufi said the ANC was finding joy in its renewal programme and he believed the party would “surprise a lot of people” in this election.