BRYAN PEARSON, Johannesburg | Wednesday 7.30pm.
OUTGOING President Nelson Mandela on Wednesday concluded his final cabinet meeting before his retirement next week with an emotional address to his ministers and deputy ministers.
“The meeting was businesslike … but towards the end it became quite emotional,” chief government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said after the four-hour cabinet meeting at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
He said Mandela thanked Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, his 24 cabinet ministers and 16 deputies, who had gathered in the large round committee room, for their “outstanding performance” over the past five years of the first post-apartheid government.
Netshitenzhe reported the president as saying that “while there may have been weaknesses and mistakes … the overwhelming picture is one of a collective of leaders who worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of the country’s people, especially of the poor.”
It was thanks to their leadership, Mandela told his inner circle, that South Africa now “enjoys conditions of peace and a measure of reconciliation, of improved services to the majority, and a continuing process of restoring the dignity of all South Africans.”
Becoming emotional, the 80-year-old president said he would “always treasure the memory of working with such a constellation of capable and committed leaders.”
Mbeki then thanked Mandela on behalf of the cabinet and told him that while the new government would respect his wishes to withdraw from active politics it would “always draw on his experience in the coming months and years.”
Mbeki is due to name a new cabinet shortly after his swearing-in as Mandela’s successor next Wednesday. — AFP