Modimolle – “Forces” are influencing people to turn against the African National Congress because they are told that the ANC is corrupt, ANC Women’s League deputy president Sisi Ntombela said on Saturday.
Speaking during the official provincial funeral of Limpopo agriculture and rural development MEC Joy Matshoge, who died in a car crash last weekend, Ntombela said people were “raised socially and politically” by the ANC but turned against the governing party.
The majority of people criticising the ANC were beneficiaries of its government programs, she said.
Addressing hundreds of mourners in Modimolle, Ntombela said it was surprising that people whose lives were changed were the ones championing the “condemnation campaign”. Students who “managed to study mathematics because of the ANC, and RDP-dwellers are unfairly turning against the ANC”.
“They go to school with [an] ANC bursary; after they know English and graduate they insult the ANC, but they know deep inside their hearts that they are where they are because of the ANC,” said Ntombela
“Our people are being influenced. They are being told how the ANC is corrupt, and they are being told every day about Nkandla,” she said.
President Jacob Zuma’s private homestead at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal was upgraded to the tune of about R256-million at taxpayers’ expense. Zuma ignored Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s findings that he and his family had unduly benefited from the Nkandla upgrades and had to repay a portion of the money spent. The Constitutional Court subsequently found he had breached the Constitution and ordered that he repay a portion of the money to be determined by National Treasury.
Asked who had turned against the ANC, Ntombela cited Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema. She said Malema was “brought up in the ANC” and she was not expecting him to turn against the ANC “no matter how difficult it was”.
Malema established the EFF after he was expelled from the ANC following a disciplinary hearing.
“I never thought in my life, even if Malema had difficulties, he will talk against the ANC like he is doing today,” Ntombela said.
African News Agency (ANA)