Ramaphosa lacks courage, only cares about the bottom line – Makhosi Khoza

African Democratic Change (Adec) leader Dr. Makhosi Khoza has launched a scathing attack on ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, saying he lacks courage and only cares about the bottom line.

Khoza, a former ANC MP, told news outlet Polity on Monday her new party was struggling to find donors because of the change of political guard at Luthuli House under Ramaphosa. She said Adec had pledges from donors in December last year of more than R85 million and now that has been reduced to almost “zero”.

“Business they feel that Cyril should be given an opportunity to rescue the economy,” Khoza said, adding that while she agreed that the economy needed to be improved, she didn’t believe a billionaire politician like Ramaphosa could take the country forward.

“We have to be careful about allowing democracy to be reduced to the consensus of the moneyed. I think it is very important for us to understand that if we want to sustain democracy in South Africa, it should not be about a billionaire politician,” she said.

“It should really be about every citizen and that citizen being able to participate in the electoral system. At this point in time, for one to get into the IEC’s [Independent Electoral Commission] electoral roll, you need about R600 000. Who can afford that? There are very few people who can do that.”

With pressure mounting on the ANC to recall President Jacob Zuma before the State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday, Khoza said she believed Ramaphosa would ensure Zuma vacated office without facing the full might of the law over the various corruption and state capture allegations against him.

“I suspect that he is not going to send Zuma to jail. As far as I’m concerned if we wanted to deal with this cancer of corruption, Zuma must replace his designer suits with orange overalls. He must go to jail so that it sends a strong message to everyone that corruption does not pay.

“If he does that I will still support Cyril, but not necessarily going to support the ANC as such,” Khoza said.

According her, the ANC made Ramaphosa and that’s why he was able to become a billionaire due to his connections to the governing party.

“I don’t have confidence in Cyril but business has confidence in him … he was involved in Marikana … his is all about the bottom line, if a life has to go, it has to go and that’s what we had in this country because it’s about the bottom line.”

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