Kasrils blames Zuma for SA’s ‘rotten situation’

Cape Town 160421- Ronnie Kasrils speaking at the University of Stellenbosch. Picture Cindy Waxa.Reporter Argus/Cape Times

Cape Town 160421- Ronnie Kasrils speaking at the University of Stellenbosch. Picture Cindy Waxa.Reporter Argus/Cape Times

Published Apr 22, 2016

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Cape Town - Struggle stalwart and former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils laid into President Jacob Zuma on Thursday, saying that under his leadership, there had been “looting of the state on a grand scale”.

Kasrils was speaking at Stellenbosch University with former Mandela Rhodes scholar Dr Buhle Zuma in a discussion entitled “South Africa into the Future”.

Kasrils has been one of the many high-profile figures calling on Zuma to step down after the Constitutional Court ruling that the president failed to uphold the constitution in his handling of the public protector’s findings on Nkandla.

“The aspects relating to Jacob Zuma’s misrule have brought us into the disastrous and, quite frankly, rotten situation we face. Everything from greed, corruption, crony capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny and looting the state on a grand scale.”

A large part of Kasrils’s talk was about economic reform, and he addressed the fact that more than 20 years since democracy, there was an even greater disparity between the rich and the poor.

He added that the ANC’s failure to deliver on certain aspects of the Freedom Charter, namely land reform, the economy and free education, led to many of the problems South Africa was currently facing.

“I think, in a sense, it’s a case of chickens coming home to roost. And one of those chickens, wearing red berets, happens to be the EFF.

“We now see a polarisation of wealth and poverty in our country, and with it the manifestation of frustration, of anger, of racism, contradictions, clashes, part of which we have seen on university campuses, where students have rightly said that those who cannot afford them should not pay fees. And they have a strong moral case.”

Zuma, the co-founder and chairman of the newly established Institute for the Study of the Human, provided a psychological view on the topics discussed, particularly on the role and perception of leadership within the country.

“We have a leadership crisis in this country. (Steve) Biko once said that material want is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty, it kills.

“Its not only (Jacob) Zuma with a history of material wealth and a deep spiritual poverty, but many of our leaders. What processes have our leaders done to decolonise themselves? Because they themselves were subjects of colonisation for many years,” he said.

Kasrils concluded by saying that despite the country’s problems, he believed South Africa had what it needed to succeed in the future.”

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Cape Argus

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