Cape Town - “The ANC is bordering on lying to the masses.” This was one of the revealing remarks made by former ANC treasurer general, Mathews Phosa, in recent interview with eNCA when he spoke about the promises the political party made when it came into power.
“We made many promises, now the expectations of our people are around those issues, there are founded on our own promises, there is an extent to which we tried to meet those expectations but the backlog is huge and massive, and it has become intolerable to the masses.”
Phosa elaborated that the ANC understood the scale of the problem they faced when they came into power.
“The ANC understood the scale of the problem, we had many arguments when we formulated the manifesto in 1994, and we tried to meet each other in middle. But that middle seems to be a bit highly pitched because the resources are not there - simply put, there is no money to meet those expectations.”
“And you could almost say, we are bordering on lying to the masses. All of us.”
He shared that it might be time to go back the drawing board, re-evaluate and look at the budget again.
Hope must not only be created for foreigners looking to invest in South Africa, but for people in the country too.
“Business is not investing. Billions of rands are here in this country [and] they are not being invested because there is concern about where we’re going with constitutional matters.”
Phosa shared the President Jacob Zuma does respect about the constitution, despite his recent remarks at the ANC KwaZulu-Natal elective conference in Pietermaritzburg, where he stated that the ANC comes before the country:
“I argued one time with someone who said the country comes first. I said as much as I understand that, I think my organisation, the ANC, comes first.”
Phosa said, “ I think he does respect the constitution, he helped write it…but I think some of his statement are unfortunate and unnecessary.”
“When every president takes an oath, he does not take an oath of the party, he takes the oath on basis of what is prescribed in the constitution, “So help me God” - around the constitution. So the constitution comes first. For me, it’s a matter of common sense.”
IOL MOJO