JOHANNESBURG - ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the City of Johannesburg's collapse is due to coalitions.
"There was stability in Johannesburg when the ANC governed alone," Mbalula said.
He was speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday.
"We created magnificent inroads in Soweto and fixed roads under our own mayors. I know many people don't like me to say this, but that is the truth."
"This municipality started to collapse when it fell into the hands of coalitions."
Ahead of the upcoming local government elections, Mbalula said the party did not believe that the country had reached an era of irreversible coalitions.
"In the ANC we don't believe it. We still work for an overwhelming majority as a party. We are going to work for an outright decisive victory in this upcoming local government election," he added.
He said the party was nearing the end of the mayoral selection process, adding that some of the selected candidates will take office immediately after the public announcement.
Mbalula said the ANC's national officials have interviewed more than 200 mayoral candidates.
All candidates were assessed against a common set of criteria, including competence, ethics and fitness for office," Mbalula said.
"What remains is the most careful stage of all. The national officials having done the interviews, will now go municipality by municipality through the painstaking task of deciding who is truly fit for the purpose in each council," Mbalula said.
He said the ANC expects to announce its mayoral candidates in the coming weeks, while the party's election manifesto will be launched in Gauteng on 15 August.
"Before the manifesto, the candidate selection process of the ANC would have been finalised. The selections of mayoral candidates would have been finalised and some of these mayors we are going to announce will resume duties with immediate effect in the different councils up until and beyond November, depending on the outcome of the general election," Mbalula said.