America's 33rd President, Harry S Truman,once said: "The only thing that's new in this world is the history you don't know".
Most of us know what to expect from the ANC Government (the powers that be), as most of their policies are as clear as mud. However, anything new coming from them or futuristic decision makings, will either excite some voters or shock their very system.
Farlex Online Dictionary defines the word "way" as "opportunity to advance in a course that is or may be used in going somewhere; progress along a certain route or in a specific direction course of conduct or action manner or method of doing; a usual or habitual mode of being,living,behaving or acting and so forth."
Subsequently some of us are all too familiar with "it's either my way or the high way" and to most people in simple terms it means someone does what he/she wants as his/her way regardless of the others opinions or I'm/We're/You're going to do it my way no matter what and if you have a problem with that, just **** off.
Is that how the ANC Government operates? A take it or leave it ultimatum type approach when it comes to our country's future. Conform or be excluded- is that right or not? Is the ANC and its policies just phoney BS and papering over the cracks in their policies?
Five years ago at an ANC Conference in Pretoria, Jacob Zuma began his speech saying how they, the ANC Party "had to choose between two options – to fight to retain its historical character and task, or to abandon its history as a liberation movement and become a modern political party with new values".
With constant outbreaks of bickering,tensions and infighting between themselves and their affiliates such as the ANC Youth league,COSATU and the South African Communist Party, ANC party unity and internal democracy is at a knife-edge and like a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode.
The question is: do these fighting that this Political Party has with itself,is it really ideological differences opinions or a pathetic scramble for South Africa's state coffers and government patronage?
Since the ANC came power in April 1994 how do their report card read in 2012:
South African Population in 1994: 40.4m / 2012 it's 50.6m
Per capita Gross Domestic Product in 1994: $5,600 / 2012 it's $10,700
Children in secondary education in 1994: 58 per cent / 2012 it's 72 per cent
Households classed as “formal dwellings” in 1994: 64 per cent/2012 it's 76 per cent
Homes with basic electricity in 1994: 58 per cent /2012 it's 81 per cent
Unemployment rate in 1994: 26 per cent/ 23.9 per cent
Share of total household income earned by black South Africans in 1994: 29 per cent/38 per cent in 2006
HIV/Aids prevalence among 15-49 year olds in 1994: 2.5 per cent /16.6 per cent in 2012
Life expectancy at birth in 1996: 61.4 years / 49.3 years in 2012
Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births in 1994: 150 / 625 in 2012
Murder rate per 100,000 people in 1994: 66.9 / 31.9 in 2012
Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index in 1994 - 21st best in the world league/ 64th in 2012.
With rampant corruption and nepotism,the ANC had been accused of living in a parallel universe to our own own. The ANC refuses to accept South African citizens have legitimate causes for complaint and that these can't just be ignored as political pathologies.
Author Njabulo S. Ndebele wrote "South Africa's ANC have become corrupted by the attractions of instant wealth, reflecting a potentially catastrophic collapse in the once cohesive understanding of the post-apartheid project as embodied in our constitution. The ANC functions as a state within the state,and it thinks it is the state."
Max du Preez,a journalist and author wrote:"The ground has shifted. Two years after their first free election in 1994,South Africa created a new constitution guaranteeing rights that much of Africa had shunned,ignored or undermined and seeming to lock the land onto the moral coordinates of its struggle for democracy. Indeed, those principles —or the threats to them — lie at the centre of the debate. Nothing anybody says or does can be taken at face value any longer, because we suspect this can only be explained if one understands what the doer or speaker wants to achieve in terms of his or her factional interest."
Alan Cowell,from the New York Times newspaper,wrote:
"South Africa has never liked to see itself in any way as a run-of-the-mill country,instead it preferred to cast itself as aloof from the corruption,strife and misrule so often associated with the continent to its north. Thabo Mbeki's calling the country's first democratic election in 1994 as "an African Renaissance" was proof of that. However South Africa have become a different country under its newest coterie of the most powerful people that surrounds President Jacob Zuma and has since lost its claim to the moral high ground".
The Washington Post newspaper made this observation:
"South Africa loses billions of dollars due to negligence and corruption by the ANC Government. A South African government minister reportedly spends the equivalent of nearly $70,000(US) of taxpayer money on a trip to Switzerland to visit his girlfriend in jail who is facing drug charges,then tells his president that he was on official business.
He claims to have been on sick leave since February. Another minister and the police chief were implicated in an unlawful deal to lease police buildings at inflated prices,which then cost taxpayers more than $250 million(US). These incidents pale besides the sprawling,routine corruption and negligence in South African governance exposed by Willie Hofmeyr,the former head of the anti-corruption agency known as the Special Investigating Unit. Hofmeyr told Parliament that around 20% of all government procurements or more than $3.8 billion,go missing each year-most of which gets stolen and the rest untraceable because of negligence. More than 900 cases of questionable contracts and conflicts of interest,valued at more than $635 million were being investigated. The worst theft, took place at the local government level,where there wasn't that much oversight.The South African government barely blinked when that report was made.
More than 900 cases of questionable contracts and conflicts of interest,valued at more than $635 million were being investigated. The worst theft,he said,takes place at the local government level,where there wasn't that much oversight.
Recommendations were made to Zuma to act against corrupt ministers. And what is Zuma's response to all that? A presidential spokesman said at the time "that Zuma would respond to the recommendations when he is ready".
In the battle of ideas which way is the right one for our country? South Africa's natural resources and the mining there off contributes 18% towards our GDP,and is ranked in the top 5 or 10 in the world in terms of production of minerals such as gold, diamonds, iron ore,manganese,platinum,chrome,coal,and ferrochrome and PGM's.The 2010 World Economic Forum global competitiveness report showed South Africa at number 6 in terms of financial markets sophistication and 9th in terms of strength of investor protection,out of 133 countries tracked.
Citibank estimated that South Africa has 2.5 trillion US Dollars worth of natural minerals resources(excluding fossil fuel products such as natural gas,coal and uranium)which argubly makes us the riches country on earth just by natural resources availbility.This off course is not the measurement of South Africa's total wealth, it's bigger than that.
Despite its vast natural resources South Africa under ANC Rule had been short of funds for investment and in their getting in more capital for infrastructure development and you had have to say they've been lagging in getting independent private power into place,there was a squeeze on the country's electricity system recently and the ANC's decision to take on a new taxing initiatives on minerals and mineral companies are driving these same investors to look elsewhere farther north in Africa to invest.
South Africa's ANC got major labour laws problems,strike problems,electricity availability problems and that all means that investors are wasting their time and money investing in South Africa. Africa is a small part of world in terms of it's collecting GDP,not a nirvana, as it only collects 2% of global GDP and FDI's. South Africa natural capital base develop by other countries are its mineral wealth and with less resource nationalization,better macro policies and regulation won't discourage investors. With that the ANC is going completely in the wrong direction.
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia who was Mayor of New York in 1934-1945 once said: "Why is it that every time you can do something good, then nice people come in and completely mess you up. Are the "nice people" from the ANC messing South Africa up right at this minute? Are we South Africans asking for too much? Is it beyond our reach to take our country forward in the way that it should go? If we can't change things,then we are nothing more but sheep being herded into the final slaughterhouse!I choose not go down that way. Do you?
References:
1.Global Pacific & Partners.
2.Telegraph Newspaper.
3.South Africa Info.
4.Wikipedia.
5.Washington Post.
6.New York Times.
7.CitiBank
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.