Crime, access to education and health will be prioritised by the African National Congress (ANC) over the next five years, party president Jacob Zuma said on Thursday.
He was delivering the keynote address at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Howard College, as the launch of the Gandhi-Luthuli Chair of Peace Studies and the Tata scholarship awards got under way.
Zuma stressed that the ANC was intensifying efforts to ensure that 60% of disadvantaged pupils would not have to pay school fees.
”We are also trying to improve the access of free education to the poor … because an investment in education is an investment in the future,” he said.
Speaking on crime, Zuma said the ruling party was confident about the fight against crime because of the launch of street committees throughout the country.
”KwaZulu-Natal was first to launch the street committees and we feel this is the best formula to fight crime,” he said.
Zuma stressed that peace was a critical element for non-violence.
As Zuma entered the campus’s Rick Turner building earlier in the day, a group of Zuma supporters overpowered the entrance music by singing ”my president”.
There was a heavy police presence at the university, which included snipers at vantage points. Earlier, Zuma’s bodyguards swept the area before he entered.
The hall was filled to capacity with guests including Durban deputy mayor Logie Naidoo, struggle veteran Dr Fatima Meer, provincial minister for sport and recreation Amichand Rajbansi and ANC provincial chairperson Zweli Mkhize.
Dignitaries who spoke at the launch included university vice-chancellor Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, India High Commissioner to South Africa Rajiv Kumar Bhatia, and Anand Sharma, the Minister of State for External Affairs of India.
In a statement, Makgoba said the chair reflected the university’s growing internationalisation.
”It also creates an academic space for articulating and sustaining a growing demand for a relevant curriculum of African-Asian studies …,” he said.
The Gandhi-Luthuli Chair of Peace Studies commemorates those who fought against the apartheid regime for peace and non-violence.
It will deal with issues relating to human rights, philosophy, language, history and morality in civil society through teaching and research initiatives.
In his address, Zuma described Mahatma Gandhi and Chief Albert Luthuli, after whom the Chair is named, as being the most important political leaders ”to ever walk the soil of KwaZulu-Natal”.
Sharma said both men stood for courage to challenge those who thought ”they could not be vanquished”.
”Gandhi belongs to South Africa as much as he belongs to India … He belongs to human kind,” he said.
As Zuma left the hall, so did most of the students, leaving Tata Africa chief executive Raman Dhawan to speak mostly to academics at the launch of the Tata Scholarship award.
Large crowds outside the hall cheered Zuma as he was escorted by bodyguards to waiting cars, which then whisked him away. — Sapa