Opinion

But perhaps the bigger question is this: why has the ANC reached a point where different factions can claim to speak on behalf of the same organisation while fighting each other over who actually has the right to do so?

Tongaat-Hulett's troubles were years in the making. Major accounting irregularities in 2019 triggered a spiral that led to business rescue in 2022. By early 2026, the situation had become dire. The company faced provisional liquidation, a move that would have had catastrophic consequences for the region.

The question is not about political activism. It is not about whether individuals have the right to organise, contest elections or seek positions of leadership. Those are fundamental features of a constitutional democracy.

Northern Cape ANC chairperson Dr Zamani Saul argues that Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary ideas and Algeria’s liberation history offer a powerful warning for post-apartheid South Africa, particularly on economic inequality, elite capture and the unfinished struggle for meaningful transformation.

The ANC must therefore stop reducing itself to a mere statistical or administrative organisation as if the life of a political movement can be reduced to databases, algorithms, verification codes, spreadsheets and automated procedures.

The Black Business Federation marched to the IDC's Durban offices, presenting a list of demands and raising concerns about the Vision Sugar/IDC transaction.