Johannesburg - The ANC is a thief stealing citizens' money, Agang SA leader Mamphela Ramphele said on Thursday.
“This ANC is the thief who has taken my money... [which is] directed to buy food parcels to buy votes,” she said at the Daily Maverick's The Gathering Conference at Gold Reef City in Johannesburg.
“What a disgrace.”
Ramphele said there was a “bad story” in this country.
She referred to the R246 million security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma's private home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.
Last month Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found, among other things, Zuma and his family had unduly benefited from the upgrades.
Ramphele said this was theft.
“It is theft from those who stood to benefit from freedom. This country bows and scrapes to this person we call number one.”
She said people such as Chris Hani, who was assassinated 21 years ago on Thursday, were turning in their graves.
With only a few weeks to go until the May 7 general elections no one in the world would be contemplating that a party like the ANC would return to power.
However, citizens were not holding government accountable, Ramphele said.
“There is something critically wrong with our democracy. Something fundamental needs to happen.”
Ramphele said, like apartheid, she would fight the ANC government.
“We will move this giant, just as we moved apartheid. It's a just and a right fight,” she said.
A number of political leaders attended the gathering, which was the election edition.
Those present included DA leader Helen Zille, Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba, and Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
Earlier, Vavi told the gathering there had been social advances since 1994 but not economically.
“Our intention to make the second decade of democracy the decade of the poor and marginalised has failed.
“Just like the first decade has disproportionally benefited white monopoly capital.”
Vavi said colonialism had stolen from the country's wealth and exploited people. However, many advances had been made since then.
He listed positive changes in South Africa since 1994.
“These advances explain why Cosatu remains firmly in support of the ANC.”
Vavi agreed that the ANC government had a good story to tell when it came to social transformation.
“[However] on hard-core economic transformation, it is not a good story,” he said. - Sapa