ANC admits faults of a decade

2004-03-08 21:00

Pretoria - The African National Congress admitted on Monday that not enough had been done to help those with HIV/Aids or to reduce crime levels.

Delivering this message himself, ANC president Thabo Mbeki visited homes in Eersterus and other parts of Pretoria to hand over a letter to residents.

In the letter, which asked residents what the country had achieved during its first decade of democracy and what it should strive to achieve during its second one, the ANC accepted that too many people were still without work and living in shacks.

While it claimed no other party in the country had done as much for the people as the ANC had, Mbeki acknowledged: "The levels of criminal violence remains too high.

"More work has to be done to improve the health of all our people. This includes Aids sufferers."

He said the ANC had dedicated the second decade of democracy to solving these and other problems.

"For this, we have urged that all South Africans should voluntarily enter into a people's contract to create work and fight poverty," Mbeki said, adding he was confident the people would accept the challenge.

- SAPA