Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi on Tuesday lamented a ”leadership crisis” he said was preventing the nation’s liberation from crime, unemployment, HIV/Aids and corruption.
”There are many other weaknesses we must acknowledge the biggest of all being the leadership crisis within our nation,” Buthelezi said in the National Assembly in reaction to President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address on Friday.
Many other weaknesses would be compounded by this ”crisis in leadership and moral credibility”, he said.
”This is a time in which history demands of us to rise above the petty divisions in politics, career interests and in-fighting within parties so that leaders may become statesmen and command the respect which our people expect of them and deserve.”
Buthelezi said weaknesses in the political machinery, including corruption, were undermining the structure of the government.
”We must admit that there are growing levels of corruption and corruptive practices and attitudes in all spheres of government and organs of state.
”The mindset of too many of our people in government is wrong. There is a feeding frenzy and a growing notion that service in government is a platform to enrich oneself, feather one’s nest for a future job, or to help friends and family.”
There was a pernicious sense, Buthelezi said, that the state and the ruling party were one and the same, and that the state had a duty to consolidate the ruling party and serve its leaders.
”Many statements have been made against corruption, but let me speak as an elder brother and a father to some of you and tell you that things are not going to be changed with statements alone.
”We must separate the state from political parties at all levels of government. We must stop the looting of state resources. There is a general unwillingness to take painful measures.”
Buthelezi said there were ”enormous weaknesses” in what South Africa was trying to achieve.
Programmes to train and uplift South Africans have not yielded the intended results at the desired pace — particularly regarding education, training, job creation and crime prevention.
”We do not see our people becoming more competent and effective in the work place or more informed, knowledgeable and educated at community level.”
The liberation movement seems to have lost its long-term vision, he said.
”Our dream was that of transforming South Africa into a country in which one day the oppressed black majority could enjoy the same levels of education, progress, prosperity and opportunities once reserved for the white minority.
”We are not going to achieve these results by strengthening the security apparatuses, while making them accountable to the ruling party.
”We are not going to achieve these results by infiltrating each and every organ of state and public enterprise to ensure that they may be controlled by and at the whims of the top tiers of the ruling party.”
Concentrating political and economic power in a few hands and enriching a few thousand people beyond their wildest dreams was not going to bring about true social and economic liberation, Buthelezi said.
”Our liberation is about training and educating our people, creating an efficient and effective state machinery, one that is not looted by anyone, and promoting an economy which can make the South African enterprise succeed in the next twenty years.”
Recent riots in many parts of the country against poor service delivery were reminiscent of those against apartheid rule, Buthelezi said.
”They cannot just be swept under the carpet merely for us to feel good. Everything in the garden is not as rosy as we might wish it to be.” – Sapa