The 53rd National Conference outlined that “Having agreed that the second phase in our transition from apartheid colonialism to a national democratic society will be characterized by more radical policies and decisive action to effect thorough-going socio-economic and continued democratic transformation, Conference concluded that this will require renewed cadres who are conscious, competent, committed, disciplined and conscientious.

We should pay urgent and systematic attention to the task of developing a contingent of cadres who have attributes that accord with the tasks of the national democratic revolution in the second phase.”

What we know is that this phase of our transition is to be the most challenging as we have already observed that 7 years into the decade of a cadre and we as a movement cannot even point to one single cadre that we have produced thus far or we are about to produce.

The first thing we must acknowledge is the fact that a cadre builds to effect the thorough-going socio-economic transformation of our country cannot be a member of the ANC that has a fetish for finer things in life, a member that is married to blue lights, VIP guest lists, designer clothes, top-end cars, media clouts, etc. A cadre builds to effect a thorough-going socio-economic transformation of our country must be the personification and symbol of popular aspirations of congress and the people.

This cadre must live with the primary motive forces which he seeks to liberate, be amongst them, work with them, eat what they eat, sleep where they sleep, go to the same places of worship that they go to, attend the same school that they use, in general, be one with those whom you seek to liberate.

The new cadre must have a thorough knowledge of the democratized state, its institutions, and how they relate with each other, and for this one needs to learn, one needs to read, one needs to be educated. The movement on its own needs to develop into a school. Whilst we are proud and continuously encourage autodidacts such as Jacob Zuma and Kgalema Motlanthe in the movement, but we as a movement need to be deliberate about education.

A lot of people are going on about the 9 wasted years but the reality is the actual wasted years are the 7 wasted years of the decade of the cadre. It takes 7 years for a student to obtain their Ph.D. in whatever studies they’re engaged in, this means that had we started earnestly in 2013 to develop cadres suitable for socio-economic transformation, 2020 would be the graduation year of our cadres.

We are 7 years into the 10 years of the decade of the cadre and we still don’t have a cadre management system in place, it logically follows that you are not going to do in 3 years what you failed to do in 7 years unless something drastic changes.