Free State African National Congress (ANC) members and guests on Friday pledged nearly R1,5-million for ANC president Jacob Zuma’s legal battles.
”You have surprised me and I’ve run out of words to say thank you,” Zuma told delegates at the party’s provincial conference in Parys.
The money, more than R52 000 of it in cash, was donated during an impromptu fundraising drive after Zuma addressed the conference.
After delegates contributed the cash, ANC chairperson Ace Magashule challenged conference guests to contribute more.
National executive committee member Susan Shabangu thanked the conference, on behalf of the ANC, for the good work and support of the ANC president. She said this was in line with a party resolution taken in 2005.
”You have shown that at all times you would take care of your leaders and support them.”
Zuma said it was the first ”practical” support he had received after the party adopted a resolution to help him. He said the gesture showed that the party in the province was united.
”Who cannot win with such support,” said Zuma. ”I’m more than humbled.”
Meanwhile, the ANC’s need to establish its own newspaper was an innocent matter, Zuma said.
Zuma criticised South Africa’s media for not being ”fair and balanced” in its reporting.
”If you had done it fairly and balanced, it was not needed,” Zuma said, adding that the media had had 15 years to do the job.
He said the work of the media was to inform the country’s people. ”Our observation is that you do not inform on the progress of government. You are not fair and balanced,” he said.
Zuma said the media was also ”quick to criticise” but slow to report on successes.
Another area of criticism was newspapers’ way of correcting mistakes. Zuma said if newspapers were shown to have reported ”unfairly” they would only correct their mistakes on inside pages and not in headlines and front-page stories.
He said there was nothing preventing the ANC from owning a newspaper. — Sapa