Grants ‘a major feat post-1994’
Residents say they still feel oppressed
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma used Freedom Day celebrations in Manguzi, KwaZulu-Natal, to boast about the government’s achievements over the past 23 years specifically on the spending of social grants for children, the elderly and disabled.
The country was better off than it was before 1994, he said, but more needed to be done to eradicate social ills such as racism.
He was accompanied by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and a number of ministers.
Zuma said the three arms of government – legislative, executive and judicial – were there for South Africans. Chapter 9 institutions were also created to protect citizens.
Like with every other speech he has given in the past few months since his State of the Nation Address, Zuma put the issue of radical economic transformation into the spotlight.
He said because the South African economy remained unequal, there was an urgent need to implement the second phase of radical economic transformation.
This was a sentiment also shared by KwaZulu-Natal MEC Sihle Zikalala, who pointed to key aspects such as land where the policy of “willing buyer and willing seller has failed”.
Zikalala, who is seen as a strong Zuma ally, said Zuma would remain the president until 2019.
His remarks were sparked by the growing resistance to Zuma’s administration. Numerous protests were held across the country led by opposition parties and civil society calling on him to go
While Zuma spoke in KwaZuluNatal, the Freedom Movement, a campaign led by opposition parties and civil society, hosted its own rally in Pretoria calling for Zuma to resign.
This rally prompted Zuma to take a swipe at the rally’s organisers with the president saying that the Manguzi event was the “official” celebration of Freedom Day.
FREEDOM Day was about assessing the work that still needed to be done to build a national democratic society, the ANC said.
On April 27, 1994, millions of South Africans classified as black or coloured under apartheid voted in the country’s first democratic elections.
“Such a society is one that guarantees social emancipation and a better quality of life for all, especially the poor,” the ANC said.
The party said bettering the lives of all South Africans required ongoing decisive action.
“As South Africans mark this day we should give pause for reflection on the role each and every South African must play in advancing this vision,” it said in a statement.
It warned that some who benefited from apartheid would try to derail efforts to build an equal society.
“We must at all times remain vigilant of certain sections of our population who were the beneficiaries of the old order and are bent on either reversing this achievement or at best stall the progress.”
Meanwhile a group of Khayelitsha residents held a rally yesterday as part of a campaign to have President Jacob Zuma removed from office.
They said they could not celebrate Freedom Day because it meant nothing to them as they still felt oppressed.
“We are here to celebrate Freedom Day but to me it means nothing,” resident Pamela Mala said.
She said there were people still without houses. She asked where was the democracy “everyone is talking about.”
Another resident Sweetness Ngethu advised the youth to go to school because they carried the country’s hope.
“Go to school so you can change the country for the better, we never got the chance, you have the right,” said Ngethu.
Tshepo Motsepe, a member of Equal Education, said they had arranged the rally to call for the president to resign.
“We call on the ANC to clean house,” he said.
Motsepe said they also want to educate people on how the country got to be downgraded to junk status. He said the government could not be trusted because it continued to fail the people.
The organisation said in a statement, “Government must be elected, open, accountable, ethical and effective. They must put the needs of the people first.
This applies to anyone who exercises responsibility or power in society. But, government commands resources on our behalf and therefore it must set the example.”
It said other organisations, movements, unions and communities, had called for a different society, founded on an inclusive economy. “To achieve such a society we believe that it is of utmost importance that Parliament and the ANC must recall President Zuma.”