The ANC’s 2014 manifesto has evoked mixed feelings from various organisations and members of the community.
In a quest to find out more about what the people think, Mpumalanga News conducted interviews with various individuals from Mpumalanga and Limpopo and here is what they had to say:
Mr Bonginkosi Mlombo, the chairperson of Ama Wheelies, which is both a home-care and rehabilitation centre for disabled persons, especially those with spinal injuries due to traumatic accidents, said he believed the intentions of the manifesto were good, although as an individual, he did not have faith in its implementation, mostly because the ruling party was known for making promises and doing little to keep them.
“I just pray that in everything the party has promised, it should prioritise disabled people. Its promises must be attainable,” said Mlombo.
“All in all, I believe the ANC has good intentions, but we still have to wait and see how the party does it,” he continued. Mlombo called on the ruling party to consider the disabled in the job-creation opportunities which the president spoke about during the delivery of the manifesto.
“Disabled people should also be employed and included in the skills-development programmes. If that can happen, then we will believe in the democracy that is being spoken about,” he concluded.
The president of the Treatment Action Campaign (Tac) in Ermelo, Ms Thobile Maseko, said there was nothing new in the ANC’s manifesto and that it was just a repetition of old promises previously made by the party. She added that Tac would soon launch its own national manifesto.
On the other hand, Mr Muzi Maseko, provincial secretary of scholar transport in the province, said the president touched on many important issues and believed the manifesto was good, especially because it emphasised the need for free education in the country. “We still need more free education at all levels, the president didn’t miss anything in the manifesto,” he said.
Maseko added that the creation of six-million job opportunities meant they were still going to do more business with government, “bearing in mind the issue of scholar transport which has been a burning issue in Mpumalanga for the past few years”.
Mr Johannes Matemane of Praktiseer in the Greater Tubatse Municipality wondered how the ruling party would do away with issues of corruption as the president mentioned he would eradicate it when he delivered the manifesto. “How can corrupt people eradicate corruption because they are corrupt themselves,” Matemane asked.
He added the ANC needed to completely remove tendering systems. He alleged that tenders were the root of corruption. Matemane also wanted to know if the ruling party was not more interested in the number of votes than providing people with basic services.
“People of this country still suffer, they have no roads as most are littered with potholes as large as bath tubs. We have no water and no jobs,”
he said.
Matemane also expressed his disappointment with some ANC members who closed roads for the president of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on his way to hand over a house he’d built for a needy woman at Nkandla. “Are the members playing a man or the ball, this country is surely heading for a civil war,”
he said.
What other parties had to say:
Cllr Aubrey Ngwatle of the Pan Africanist Congress in Tubatse said the ANC’s manifesto was unclear about the transformation of the economy, especially about beneficiations. “How will the ANC be able to create more job opportunities because we only produce raw materials in the country and are unable to refine? To me this issue is impossible,”
he said.
Ngwatle alleged the ruling party was unwilling to distribute land to the indigenous people; he added there was a backlog and government did not have money to process that. He questioned the issue of rural development and claimed that since 1994 there wasn’t any development in rural areas as industries were mostly located in towns. “There are no industries in rural areas, some communities still have no water and electricity,” he said.
Ngwatle said he still wondered how the ANC was going to close the gap between the haves and the have-nots in terms of accessing primary health care. “Only those who have money have access to better health systems in the country,” he said.
On the other hand, COPE’s representatives in the Tubatse Council, Cllr Maxy Selahle said it would be very difficult for the ANC to convince the people with its empty promises because it had been governing the country for a long time.
“Its promises must be backed by what it has done in the past. Promises must be justified by the number of years it has spent in power. I don’t think what it has been saying is what the people will believe,”
he said.
Selahle added there was a number of schools in Limpopo that still did not have any textbooks. “So what are they saying about the education of our young ones? We should be talking about education first and politics later so that learners can realise that education is a priority,” he said.
