The African National Congress is more than ready with its preparations for the fourth National Policy Conference which will kick off with a colloquium on Brics today. The colloquium will be led by the Treasurer General Comrade Matthew Phosa, it started at 11h00 today and will be followed by the Presidential Banquet, to be addressed by President Zuma starting at 19h30 tonight, hosted by the Progressive Business Forum tonight at Gallagher Estate.

Our administration teams are at work at Gallagher Estate particularly with the registration of all categories of participants, which is currently underway. We are confident that all processes will unfold smoothly as per our work plans.

Having released all 12 discussion papers three months ago, there have been very robust debates within our branches, regions, provinces, alliance structures and the public on the policy proposition. We are very confident that the policy conference starting tomorrow will bring together all those discussions and produce outstanding policy outcomes which will be a catalyst for the enhancement of the attainment of a better life for all our people.

We want to acknowledge the role of the media in this regard, the media has shown interest on the issues contained in the discussion documents and the engagements that ensued.

All submissions that have been made by individuals and organisations have been sent to all relevant sub-committees of the NEC together with outcomes of discussions of the Provincial General Councils and conferences. These will assist in ensuring that the conference considers these discussions broadly and inclusively. We will ensure that all concerns raised are looked into and responded to within the framework of the national policy deliberations.

Our programme will resume tomorrow morning with an open session to be addressed by President Zuma which will mark the official opening of our fourth national policy conference. This will be followed by the adoption of the programme, rules and procedures of the conference.

Conference will then proceed to a closed plenary session which will receive inputs on the following documents; organizational renewal, Strategy and tactics, the State intervention in the Mining sector study report (SIMS) as well as the National Development Plan and Commission guidelines. In the afternoon of the first day, the conference will break into 12 commissions all of which will deliberate on organizational renewal together with strategy and tactics.

The second day will be pre-occupied by the commissions discussing all the 12 policy documents. The Commissions will start to report back on the third day in a closed plenary session. The reports back by Commissions will continue into the fourth day and will be completed by 11h00 on the fourth and last day.

A closing open session is scheduled to take place at 11h30 with President Zuma delivering the closing address to the fourth National Policy Conference.

Whilst all plenary sessions of the policy conference will be chaired by Comrade Baleka Mbete on her capacity as the National Chairperson of the ANC, the report back sessions of commissions will be chaired by the National Head of Policy, Comrade Jeff Radebe.

We are expecting more than 3500 delegates to attend the policy conference, these comprise of branch delegates, NEC, ANC Leagues, Tripartite Alliance, deployees, business representatives and more than 300 representatives from the media.

We congratulate the new leadership of the ANC Free State province, led by Cde Ace Magashule on their elections this weekend.

We also want to take this opportunity to convey our condolences to the families of the three comrades who passed on during a bus accident which overturned outside Bethlehem in the Free State province on Saturday while returning from the ANC Youth League rally. May their souls rest in peace. We will pray for the speedy recovery of those who were injured.

In the same breath, we want to convey our condolences to the families of the four people who died as a result of the raging storms that affected the Free State and parts of the North West provinces over this weekend. We call for speedy assistance of those that were affected adversely by the storm.

Issued by:

Gwede Mantashe

ANC Secretary General