President Thabo Mbeki’s ”failed promises” in finance, service delivery and health were the focus of opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon’s speech in Pretoria on Thursday.
”We must measure the president’s promises from last year against the government’s achievements and failures,” Leon said at his ”real state of the nation” address ahead of Mbeki’s State of the Nation address in Cape Town on Friday.
Mbeki had promised in his 2005 address to increase investment in transport logistics, electricity and water resources, Leon said.
But instead signs of a decline in national infrastructure had been seen.
Leon cited power cuts, fuel shortages, and poor sanitation that led to a typhoid outbreak in Mpumalanga as examples of this decline.
The Gautrain, the R20-billion proposed high-speed rail link between Johannesburg and Pretoria, also came under fire as a costly exercise that would not benefit ordinary South Africans.
”It has the potential of being a white elephant whose cost amounts to R500 out of the pocket of every South African. Millions of ordinary working South Africans will simply be bypassed by this train,” said Leon.
He said the same amount of money could have been better used to pay for over 6 000km of ordinary rail, more than 13 000 buses and more than 118 000 minibus taxis.
”[Mbeki] promised to liberalise the telecommunications industry and to clarify black economic empowerment (BEE) policy by releasing the government’s codes of good practice,” Leon said.
He said, however, Mbeki had backtracked on fulfilling his commitments to exemptions from the code for small business and his labour reforms were defeated by the African National Congress.
Leon said although the codes were published last year, they remained complex and were a huge obstacles to local and foreign investors in South Africa.
Mbeki had failed in fulfilling the promise of a health care system which was to ”reduce communicable and non communicable diseases as well as non-natural causes of death” Leon said.
He said nearly 400 000 South Africans died of HIV/Aids last year, and quoted Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy on HIV/Aids who said United Nations officials were ”completely bewildered by the policies of President Mbeki”.
South Africa’s relationship with Zimbabwe in the light of human rights abuses there and its ”shielding” of Iran from international pressure over its nuclear weapons programme were also criticised.
”The president practices the policy of quiet diplomacy at home as well.
”He has been completely silent on Oilgate and he has been completely silent on Travelgate … we have Oilgate, Travelgate, Zumagate and Gravyplane-gate. Where is investigate?” Leon asked.
He offered solutions to a number of the problems facing the country, including making labour laws more flexible so as to create jobs, and achieving real BEE by giving shares to workers who were not ANC ”cronies”.
”We can create truly broad-based BEE not by making Smuts Ngonyama [head of the ANC’s presidency] a millionaire but by putting shares into the hands of ordinary black South Africans,” he said.
Leon also suggested the protection of civic freedoms.
”We can protect our liberal Constitution by resisting any and all efforts by the ruling party to use constitutional amendments to heel.
”We can uphold the freedom of expression by liberating the SABC from the editorial control of the ruling party.”
Leon urged supporters to ”fix what is wrong” by voting for the DA in the municipal elections on March 1. – Sapa