President was “quoted out of context” – Maharaj

“The Presidency has noted reports in certain media, suggesting that Zuma insinuated that Africans were backward and that they should stop thinking like ‘Africans in Africa’ and ‘accept that Gauteng roads were not like some national roads in Malawi or Pietermaritzburg or Rustenburg.’ The words have regrettably been taken out of context and blown completely out of proportion,” Maharaj said. Zuma yesterday was addressing the Gauteng ANC Manifesto Forum at the Wits University Great Hall in Johannesburg, where he commented on a wide range of issues including the ANC’s economic policies, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, youth employment, the National Development Plan and the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project, which among other things had necessitated the tolling of roads. Maharaj said the President made the example that it was also not fair to expect Gauteng roads to be compared to roads in other towns such as “Pietermaritzburg, Rustenburg, Polokwane or any other town or national road in Malawi as this was Gauteng, the heartbeat of South Africa’s economy and an international city of commerce and business”. Mmusi Maimane, DA Premier candidate for Gauteng, said Zuma should withdraw his statement which, he claimed, could be interpreted as meaning “we can’t think like Africans because we are in Johannesburg”, and that it suggests that Malawi is backward. “Many governments in African countries have adopted investor-friendly policies that create jobs. They are not burdening citizens with double-taxation through an expensive e-tolling system. The President should rather take a leaf out of the books of other African economies that are actually growing faster than us,” Maimane said.