President opens ‘model’ schools
FOR the first time, the IFP has bundled the DA and EFF together with the ANC, saying they were all choices voters needed to avoid on May 8.
Launching the party’s provincial manifesto in Pietermaritzburg yesterday, IFP outgoing leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi said the ANC had crippled the country with corruption and the DA focused on doom and while the EFF ran a divisive campaign.
Buthelezi said the EFF had plans that could never be turned into reality in any circumstances.
“I understand how tempting it is to run with a party that promises to fix everything overnight. But you can’t eat promises.
“Many of the plans that are proposed could never be implemented,” he said of the EFF without naming it.
Buthelezi pointed to the ANC’s failure in the provincial capital, Msunduzi (Pietermaritzburg), where the municipality had to be placed under administration after accruing bad debts of R3 billion.
Outlining his plans if elected, the party’s premier candidate, Velenkosini Hlabisa, promised clean governance and presented a 10-point plan which included redistributing government land to the masses and dealing with crime, especially political killings and taxi violence. PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to use the next five year to turn the country’s education into the best in the world if he is voted back into power.
The ANC leader has also promised to supply tablets to each school pupil so as to ensure they are adequately prepared for the fourth industrial revolution.
“I want to remind you that on May 8 you should go out to vote so that our government can be able to give our children the best education in the world,” said Ramaphosa.
He was speaking at the official opening of a newly built state of the art, Ingweni Phaphama, Lembe and Enhlanhleni primary schools in Dannhauser in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
The schools will have modern technology classrooms with teachers and pupils will have access to touch screen tablets.
Ramaphosa pointed out that the schools were the model of what his government wanted to see throughout the country.
“Young learners at grade one already have a digital type of methods, they are able to draw while it shows on the screen immediately,” he said.
Before addressing the community, Ramaphosa highlighted that his government had a responsibility to continue with the legacy that the ANC began 25 years ago to correct the “mess that was created by the apartheid”
“The challenge is huge as the apartheid had caused the biggest mess that you can ever imagine. The resources remain the biggest challenge, but we are going to speed up the installation of infrastructure. I will give out tablets to each and every pupil so that they can be prepared for the fourth industrial revolution,” he said.
While on the platform he was careful not to say which party people should vote for.
ANC provincial chairperson Sihle Zikalala who speaking as the acting premier said people had to vote for the ANC so that their lives would continue to improve. He said the party had made strides in correcting the condition of rural school infrastructure, which he said had shocked World Bank officials who visited the country in 1982.
“I am sure that if the World Bank can send its president today to see what had been done 25 years into democracy he would say there is a difference in rural schools, who have become centres of excellence,” he said.
Zikalala also said the apartheid and former KwaZulu governments had failed to provide required education in rural areas.
“There was a white government which oppressed us and there was KwaZulu government under Umntwana (Mangosuthu Buthelezi) as the prime minister and they all didn’t do anything for us.
It was only under Mandela and Cyril Ramaphosa’s ruling party that the quality of education improved. Therefore on May 8 let us go to vote,” he said.