Without economic growth, ANC’s election promises will ring hollow, warns Mbeki

Former president Thabo Mbeki has reiterated his call for South Africans to hold the ANC accountable for its election promises after Monday’s municipal polls.

Mbeki has warned that the many promises made by the governing party, as well as other parties, will not be fulfilled if they don’t urgently attend to the country’s economic crisis.

Addressing the business community in Durban on Thursday evening during an ANC election event, the former head of state lamented the state of the country’s economy and high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

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Mbeki said these conditions were producing very negative consequences for the country and extreme levels of human suffering.

He said without economic growth, the ANC’s election promises would not be fulfilled because government needs resources to make a difference in people’s lives.

“The fact of the matter is, the promises that we all make to build roads and schools, end the bucket system and create jobs requires resources… those jobs will not come if we don’t attend to that economy.

“And the promises all of us make about all the good things that we are going to do will not happen if we don’t have the money to do that,” Mbeki said.

‘The ANC is losing respect’

Mbeki touched on the importance of the ANC’s promise to renew itself. He said the ANC was losing respect and its capacity to lead the country was disappearing.

Mbeki warned that the party was likely to continue to lose its electoral support if it does not deal with its internal squabbles for power and corruption within its ranks.

“I think the ANC has understood that if it wants to survive itself, it has to renew itself,” he said.

“I’m saying for these matters about governance [and] the fight against corruption to translate from a promise, to a commitment, [they] must mean a commitment to do this renewal, which is demanded by the national conference of the ANC.”

‘It’s about rescuing SA from this enormous crisis’

Mbeki also sang the praises of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government for working with social partners in the private sector on interventions to address the country’s economic challenges.

But he said their commitments would be ring hollow if they were not held to account by citizens.

“Personally, I would like that all of us as South Africans should really take up this matter with the ANC. Local government elections will take place on Monday and then from Tuesday we must go back to them to say this is what you promised in your manifesto.

“It’s not about an ANC victory, it’s about rescuing this country from this enormous crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

“And I think all of us should take this on board as one of our tasks as South Africans to insist that this must happen. The social partners have already produced more or less a vision and a plan to address this critical matter,” he said.

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