The African National Congress needs to find a ”far more dignified” way of dealing with the succession issue, business magnate and former party heavyweight Tokyo Sexwale said on Monday.
”What we are seeing with the [Jacob] Zuma/Thabo Mbeki debacle is less than dignified,” he told an Institute for Justice and Reconciliation symposium in Cape Town. ”I think we can do better. Beware also the law of unintended consequences. Things may just snap.”
He said he thinks the ANC needs to give better guidance to the nation about its transition and succession policies.
The party leadership needs to pause and ”just go back, take stock and ask: How did we get here?’
”How do people burn a T-shirt with Thabo Mbeki’s face on it on behalf of Zuma? I don’t understand. I’ve known both of them for 30 years.
”I think we need to provide, as the ANC … a better, far more dignified way of doing things. This is not the way. It unsettles people.”
Sexwale said South Africa is going to ”rise or fall” on the issue of local government.
It does not matter how good the country looks at the level of national leadership; the issue will come down to the level of people responsible for delivery on the ground.
It is disturbing to see the way people are trashing their own cities.
”People are getting increasingly uncomfortable, and they are saying ‘delivery, delivery, delivery’ on the ground. I think that’s where this thing will catch us.”
He said the auditor general has qualified all but four of the reports on municipalities’ finances that he most recently submitted to Parliament, and has spoken about maladministration, misappropriation, fraud, corruption and underspending.
”We have made a mistake in the ANC,” Sexwale said. ”It was a mistake for us to take everybody down to Cape Town and to Pretoria. Your best generals go to the worst front. In mining, your best engineers, technicians, they go to the rockface.
”We haven’t done so and a quick corrective action is required, otherwise that’s where this nation may face a crisis.”
Key role of municipalities
Speaking at the same symposium, former president FW de Klerk said the problem with service delivery is generally not a lack of resources, but a lack of skills, planning and management.
Effective municipal, health and social welfare services will significantly help to address the plight of the poorest South Africans.
”Municipalities have a key role to play in the war on poverty and they are not playing that role successfully in all too high a percentage of cases,” he said.
De Klerk said no one can quarrel with the underlying goals of black economic empowerment (BEE), but the question is how these ideals can best be achieved in the real world.
Experience teaches that economic outcomes cannot be determined by legislation or compulsion. More often the result of such attempts is the opposite of their authors’ intention.
He fears it will be the same with BEE legislation.
”How can the state determine ownership levels on an ethnic basis in an open-market economy? How can we achieve BEE’s objective of equitably transferring ownership from whites to blacks without undermining property rights?”
Real empowerment means enabling people to acquire the skills, opportunities and resources they need to add value and compete successfully in a tough and competitive world, De Klerk said. — Sapa