With President Cyril Ramaphosa set to deliver the ANC’s pivotal January 8th Statement that weekend, a political analyst had launched a damning assessment of the party’s record in the North West province, labelling it a failure on governance, unemployment, and service delivery.
The critique had centred on what the analyst described as a consistent pattern of political maladministration and interference, particularly at municipal level, with suggestions it extended to provincial administration.
“The ANC has certainly not lived up to its promises,” the analyst stated. “It’s one of its worst performing provinces, the North West, in terms of governance and governance issues.”
The analyst pointed to visible decay as evidence of systemic failure. “Even driving there you saw the deterioration in the state of the roads, in the state of infrastructure, and this was across the board,” they said, citing Rustenburg, Lichtenburg, and Mahikeng as examples. “There had been really poor administration and governance in the North West.”
The economic picture presented was equally bleak. Despite mining being the cornerstone of the provincial economy, youth unemployment was estimated at 45%, with the official rate near 52%. “That meant half of the province was unemployed. That was an indictment on the organization as well,” the analyst said.
This economic desperation, the analyst argued, had manifested in communities turning to illegal mining in areas like Bapong due to a lack of formal jobs and opportunity—a direct result, in their view, of failed ANC policy and governance.
The analyst recalled the ANC’s 2012 policy conference commitment to reindustrialise the economy. “In Rustenburg, in that area, it was supposed to be a mining or an industrial hub, but we did not see that as a result again of the poor governance and mismanagement of the political atmosphere in the province.”
The sharp analysis had set a challenging backdrop for President Ramaphosa’s January 8th address, an event traditionally used to set the party’s agenda for the year. The remarks underscored the pressing governance and economic crises in a key province that the ANC’s leadership would be forced to address as it headed into a critical electoral period.