Chairperson of the Economic Transformation commissions, Enoch Gondongwana, on Sunday said the e-tolls were discussed at length during the National General Council.

"Particularly by people from Gauteng," said Gondongwana.

He said delegates expressed their appreciation to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa in trying to craft a compromise.

"The problem at the moment is that even that compromise has not been implemented, this is creating a bit of agitation.

"We are calling for the speedy implementation of the compromise and Gauteng people have said [e-tolls] have some form of economic impact on a number of people, particularly on certain sectors of society.

"We said government must find alternative ways to deal with those questions," he said.

In October, the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) vowed that it would lobby the mother body in a bid to have e-tolls scrapped.

Gondongwana said the NGC was being convened under unfavourable economic conditions.

"Among other things is that our manufacturing sector has also had difficulties in terms of performance and therefore what is needed to work out a strategy, with the industry, and decide what is it that needs to be done to enhance our manufacturing industry and its competitiveness."

On the steel industry, he said the lack of competitiveness in the industry was not only cheap steel in China. He said there was a problem with out-dated infrastructure and investment on equipment in the industry.

He said the agriculture industry was facing challenges because of the drought.

On youth unemployment, he said: "We are saying let us focus on that group of people and bring them into focus training, mobilise all the institutions that are available in government and the private sector and also make sure that there are relationships between training and the practical work.

On energy and electricity, he said increasing capacity was key.

"The issues we are talking about is efficient maintenance, increasing capacity, refurbishing of the old power station.

"A couple of these power stations with the capacity of 10 000MW are likely to be decommissioned unless we do something else. So we proposed that instead of decommissioning them, refurnish them," he said.

News24.com