ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe says the party’s loss of support after last month’s local government election would not sway its leaders to introduce populist policies, which would increase government spending.
He was addressing business leaders at an investment conference in Newlands, where he said South Africans wanted tangible changes to their lives, something the ANC had done over the past two decades in power.
“It’s about service delivery. No country has built and given houses for free to more than three million people in 20 years anywhere else in the continent. And we’ve done it,” boasted Mantashe.
He said free housing and social grants given to the poor handed a blow to poverty.
“I can boast that as a country we’ve got social grants. Many people say it’s a waste of money. It’s not a waste of money, it’s ameliorating the effects of abject poverty to the elderly, the disabled and young children.”
He claimed global donors funded “opposition forces” in many African countries, citing examples in Tanzania.
“We’ll talk of regime change, reducing legitimately elected government from power because they must support Western interests in the main. It’s a dream, it’s not a myth, it’s not a concept, it’s a reality for us and we’re looking at it…
"We are transforming society and we need your support in transforming society.”
He said the ANC had also put a stop to the “Hollywood approach” of the Hawks in publicly badgering Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan with questions in relation to the allegedly unlawful operations of an Sars intelligence unit.
He said there was no discussion about who could potentially replace Gordhan in the event he was removed, and the president and ANC had expressed their confidence in him.
He also said the ANC had decided, after getting a “lesson” on the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill, which will tighten up scrutiny of financial transactions involving high-profile political figures, that Zuma should sign it.
This comes after the president revealed he had been lobbied by representatives of some black business organisations not to sign the bill.
Mantashe said the ANC understood new measures were necessary to make the country compliant with international norms, even if it disagreed with them.