Johannesburg - ANC heavyweight Malusi Gigaba criticised opposition parties and NGOs on Friday for telling foreign countries South Africa has failed since achieving democracy.
“All around us, the opportunists, the pessimists, the opposition and the counter-revolutionists are telling us what we have achieved in the last 19 years has been nothing and this revolution faces its inevitable doom,” he told the SA Democratic Teachers' Union in Kempton Park.
“If you go to raise money overseas, why use the name of (former African National Congress president) OR Tambo? Why speak ill of our country and demean the progress we have made?”
He said certain opposition leaders went to countries like the United States and spoke ill of development in South Africa so they could get money from them.
“They do so because they seek funding to pursue their agenda,” said Gigaba, an ANC national executive committee member who is also public enterprises minister.
“(Since 1994)... We have given children more access to education than the apartheid government ever did,” he said.
Agang SA leader Mamphela Ramphele is on record as having said the South African education system was better under apartheid.
Gigaba said foreign powers were responsible for two world wars, centuries of colonialism, and the world financial crisis, which ruined the lives of millions.
“You don't see Americans come to us and say 'we are bad people'.”
He said mistakes would happen in the struggle to make South Africa a better country.
“We must be the first to admit our mistakes and correct them,” he said.
“We can't allow for our opposition to gain an upper hand on our movement by the mistakes we have made.”
Gigaba said the tripartite alliance's members needed to work together to prevent opposition parties from gaining a foothold in next year's elections.
“In the coming election there is a choice between the movement for liberation, and on the other hand, right-wing opportunist riff-raff.
“We must put aside everything else and focus on the overwhelming victory of our movement. The ANC and the people are one,” he said.
Sapa