ANC making 'steady progress'

2007-10-26 15:55

Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki said the African National Congress government was making steady progress in meeting the basic needs of poor people, despite attempts to discredit it by the "left alternative".

Writing in the ANC's weekly newsletter, Mbeki said the Community Survey 2007 published by StatsSA showed there had been an improvement in meeting basic needs since 2001, which in turn had improved since 1996. This showed that today was better than yesterday when it came to improving people's lives.

"This is an outcome of which our movement must be proud. However, it also constitutes the challenge that we must also make the commitment to the masses of our people that tomorrow will be better than today," he said.

Mbeki said the results of the survey disproved claims by what he called "the left alternative" that the poor were not being cared for by the government.

Mbeki said: "The entirely false argument that sought to portray Gear as an ANC betrayal of the working people has resurfaced in the recent past under the label of a so-called '1996 class project'.

"The shameless fabrications advanced under this label have sought to discredit our movement in the eyes of the masses of our people, to prepare for its political defeat."

He said the objective of this movement was to displace the ANC and to take over leadership of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR).

Continued improvements

"This offensive seeks to create the possibility for these anti-ANC factions to capture the leadership of the NDR for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with advancing the interests of our working people, he said.

"The working masses include the poorest in our country, who were among the new masses that carried the struggle for the victory of the democratic revolution on their shoulders.

Those who posed as "the left alternative" to the ANC sought to exploit the continuing misery of these masses, which the democratic revolution inherited from centuries of colonial and apartheid white minority domination, to persuade them the ANC had betrayed them, Mbeki said.

He said the ANC would continue to improve the lives of the poor by providing basic services as well as increasing basic wages for the very poorest.

- SAPA