The African National Congress (ANC) provincial task team (PTT) in KwaZulu-Natal has reached an agreement with disgruntled members which will see the withdrawal of a court application which barred its elective congress from going ahead.

The KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg granted a last-minute interdict against the much-anticipated provincial conference last month when party members from the Harry Gwala, Moses Mabhida and Lower South Coast regions complained over processes leading up to the event.

They claimed there was a manipulation of these processes and gatekeeping at branch general meetings.

The KZN ANC conference was first turned into a consultative conference, then completely abandoned after delegates refused to be addressed by the ANC's national chairperson Gwede Mantashe.

Memorandum

In a memorandum from the PTT's coordinator Sihle Zikalala, which News24 has seen, members are told that the task team has decided that the conference will go ahead from July 19 to 21. Delegates at the aborted conference had wanted it to take place this weekend.

The PTT's convenor, Michael "Mike" Mabuyakhulu, confirmed the dates to News24 and said an agreement was reached between leaders in the province and members who were "unhappy" about particular issues.

"We signed an agreement with our members, it's not disgruntled members, they are our members who were unhappy with certain things before the conference sat," Mabuyakhulu said of the deal which was signed on Thursday.

"We have agreed about the issues of concern, reached consensus on all those issues, we have an action plan dealing with those issues.

"We as an organisation are happy in the manner in which the outcomes of our discussions have gone," he added.

Court battle

KwaZulu-Natal was embroiled in a court battle which saw a provincial executive committee dissolved by the same court in the lead-up to the ANC's 54th national elective congress last year.

This week, the ANC's deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte, who also heads up the party's national dispute resolution committee, told News24 she felt the province was ready for its elective congress.

She also said that in retrospect it was a good thing that it did not go ahead as planned last month, as it had allowed the province to rebuild and to regain confidence, which was lost through the manipulation of processes.