An honest look at the ANC
2008-07-21 13:02
Kolobe, News24 User
To quote Karl Marx: "There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits."
Government has taken a leading position in drawing attention to and focusing on the challenges of fighting poverty - a problem which they adopted from the previous regime.
The transitional government and the first term of President Mbeki concentrated on fundamental economic growth with an aim of growing economy for creating employment; this economic strategy was introduced so that a huge debt incurred by the previous government could be repaid.
In the meantime the government also introduced social grants as a measure to fight poverty. Job creation is a mammoth economic task when the private sector business is still in the hands of the privileged minority; successful countries like china achieved their economic growth through public and private sector collaboration.
The social playing field has been levelled with proper policies such as BEE and EE and past injustices are being addressed with proper strategies. Black people now have equal opportunities and can be elevated to positions of power in management. The empowerment of women has become critical and the economy is growing as planned; the movement has become a beacon of hope to the masses.
The problem of decaying infrastructure has been created mainly because our infrastructure was built for the minority and therefore cannot cope with the large additional numbers of people that are as a direct result of the ANC's strategy.
This means the ANC has created so much wealth for the masses that our current infrastructure cannot cope.
Just fourteen years
It is impossible to address the injustices done to millions of people in 14 years; the movement is doing well and we need to be patient.
These are major and core services that the government put in place provided by statistics South Africa:
Electricity: more than 70% of households have access to electricity, compared to 30% in 1996.
Housing: 481 373 rentals from the past were transferred to people living in them to own; more than 1.5 million new houses were built, with 1 9 million people getting their housing subsidies approved. Forty-nine percent of these subsidies were allocated to women.
Water: From 60% in 1996, more than 80% of households now have access to clean running water
Changing this legacy of apartheid will take a long time but the democratic government has put policies and programmes in place to begin to turn things around.
I still believe that the ANC is the right party to change and face the challenges the masses in this country face.
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