African National Congress (ANC) stalwarts and veterans will hold a national consultative conference to address the challenges faced by the party, Reverend Frank Chikane said on Thursday.

The national consultative conference will take place at Gallagher Convention Centre from the 20th until the 22nd of October, Chikane said.

He said the first day of the conference will be dedicated to interaction with civil society.

"Anybody who is South African is welcome. That is the nature of the African National Congress (ANC), it always reflected everybody in the country. It wasn't just for its members."

Chikane said that the last two days will be focused on the crisis in the country and the ANC.

"We plan after the civil society session to have an opening function where everybody will be invited to participate."

He said veterans have extended an invitation to ANC members and its leaders to join the conference.

"In terms of ANC related people, it's going to involve everybody from the top leadership to the members on the ground. Alliance partners and related organisations, young and old."

Resolutions

He added that the elders were in talks with ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe as well as treasurer general Zweli Mkhize to ensure that resolutions that are taken at the conference are taken to the party's national elective conference in December.

The elders boycotted the planned two days set aside for the consultative conference during the 2017 national policy conference.

The former ANC leaders said their decision was based on the top six refusing to separate the policy conference from the consultative conference, as previously promised.

The stalwarts had requested the two days to review the state of the organisation, which was in "crisis".

They had initially written a letter to Zuma requesting his resignation with 101 signatories.

Zuma, however, questioned the 101 signatories during his opening speech at the national policy conference, saying that some of them had called ANC headquarters to distance themselves from the letter.

He fell short of calling the former leaders ill-disciplined, saying that they chose to communicate with the ANC through media briefings.