ANC must step up
NOT FOR the first time, the ANC has taken a long, tortuous route to resolve a matter that should have been sorted out in a matter of days. Instead, the “early retirement” of North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo took a month – and only after residents of the province had to take to the streets in violent protest to demand his resignation, and Luthuli House had to agonise over how to push him out.
It should not have been difficult. Scandal has enveloped Mahumapelo for a long time…
He has been accused of involvement in dodgy tenders. The shadows of the Guptas have been hanging over him for months. He is alleged to have given a herd of cattle (worth R1.5 million) which had been earmarked for emerging farmers to former president Jacob Zuma.
These matters alone should have resulted in his sacking.
But the ANC, as has been its wont in recent times, failed to act decisively, making its top officials, especially President Cyril Ramaphosa, look weak.
It is high time it acknowledges that the unity it has been trying to sell to its members and supporters is a façade – and that it has been unable to meld together a collection of square pegs and round holes.
RAMAPHOSA must start working urgently towards building a team untainted by the Zuma years. South Africa’s economy desperately needs a series of quick victories. If not, it will have a big problem.
It’s no secret that a number of ambitious members who would have expected top positions in the organisation were sidelined at the ANC elective conference last December.
This is especially true of members in festering KwaZulu-Natal.
What Ramaphosa and his loyalists can ill-afford now is what Thabo Mbeki had to contend with for part of his presidency – a “coalition of the wounded”.
The ANC government has myriad problems to contend with. Its economy has to grow quickly. It has to root out corruption. It needs to build housing for the poor. It has to create jobs for its youth.
It stands to lose too much if those on the outside – or those who should be on the outside – are allowed to determine the agenda, or its pace.