South African president Thabo Mbeki would spend Wednesday, his 61st birthday, working, his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said.
Mbeki was to deliver his budget vote speech in the National Assembly on Wednesday afternoon after which he would meet Sibusiso Vilane, the first black African to summit Mount Everest.
On Wednesday night Mbeki would have to write his reply to his budget vote.
”The president will not be doing anything special on his birthday, he will work.”
The South African Youth Council called on the country’s youth on Wednesday to support Mbeki in his endeavours to create a better life for people on the African continent.
Congratulating the president on his birthday, Youth Council spokesperson Zama Ka Ndaba said that Africans had been given a sense of pride by people like Mbeki.
”Thanks to this son of the soil (Mbeki), today it feels good to be an African,” Ka Ndaba said.
”Today it feels good to be African because we know that we are born of a people who are heroes and heroines.”
He called on the youth to rally behind Mbeki.
”His efforts require our support, they require a collective will for a common course in nation building.”
The African National Congress (ANC) also congratulated the president on his birthday.
”As the president marks this occasion, we celebrate the years that he has spent in the service of the South African people and the contribution that he has made to our movement,” ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said. – Sapa