The African National Congress (ANC) on Friday urged Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille to start with a report card of her own cabinet in the Western Cape before criticising the government.
”Out of touch and kilter with the spirit of democracy in South Africa, Zille has come up with a male-dominated provincial cabinet that defies our efforts to redress gender and race imbalances created by apartheid,” party spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said in a statement.
He was reacting to the DA’s release of its annual cabinet report card this week.
”… All ANC-governed metro councils had to pull all the stops to ensure that the bus rapid transport [BRT] system is up and running,” Mthembu said
”Under the stewardship of Zille, this project hit serious snags in the Cape Town metro, with the budget more than double than was originally planned.
”This mess of the BRT alone should earn Zille an absolute zero,” Mthembu said.
On releasing the opposition party scorecard, Zille said charm and charisma may be the greatest weapons in President Jacob Zuma’s political armoury, but he was a danger to the Constitution.
”We settled on three out of 10 as an overall mark for the president,” she said, at the same time conceding she had a lot to learn about charm from Zuma, who she described as disarmingly warm, approachable and affable.
She went on to say that unless he was stopped, he would go down in history as the president who ”destroyed” South Africa’s Constitution.
”Instead of providing an effective brake on power abuse, independent institutions are becoming extensions of the ANC, and instruments of the party’s power abuse,” Zille said.
The ANC said the scorecard reflected a ”lack of political depth”.
”Not only does the latest move expose the DA to be employing cheap and desperate political tactics, but it demonstrates that they are not in keeping with the sentiments expressed by the South African people and the international community in praising the work of government, particularly that of our President, Jacob Zuma,” Mthembu said, adding that the ANC had no intention of changing the Constitution.
Mthembu was ”surprised” that Zille and the DA still viewed newly appointed National Director of Public Prosecutions advocate Menzi Simelane as a threat to the Constitution.
”We want to assure Zille that we have absolute confidence in advocate Simelane and we have no doubt that he will serve the Constitution with distinction.
”We would also like to assure the DA that any attempts to rubbish the name of advocate Simelane and the judgement of our president in appointing him will not find any acceptance within the South African populace.”
He said the DA would fail in reversing Simelane’s appointment, just as it had failed in its bid to save the Scorpions. — Sapa