Johannesburg - The DA says President Cyril Ramaphosa has failed to deliver fundamental changes to peoples’ lives in his first year in office labelling the “new dawn as same darkness”.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane said the president has done nothing to reform the structural issues faced during former president Jacob Zuma’s presidency and instead the same path continues for the ANC.
The leader of the opposition downplayed efforts made by Ramaphosa to appoint new ministers and leading a clean-up at state-owned enterprises that were ravaged by corruption.
Maimane was on Monday delivering the DA’s assessment of the government’s performance for the year.
He said little effort has been seen to investigate and arrest those that have been accused of state capture, particularly Zuma.
The party said this despite the fact that there is currently a commission of inquiry investigating allegations of state capture which is headed by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo.
Maimane said the slow pace of law enforcement officials, shows that state capture is not a Zuma phenomenon but an ANC one.
“State capture continues to be presented as an aberration of the Zuma Presidency, rather than a system of corruption that is the modus operandi of the ANC as a whole. The policy of cadre deployment, picking civil servants for political loyalty over merit, combined with the elevation of the party and its interests over the state, has opened the way for massive endemic corruption. State capture is not a Zuma phenomenon, it is the way the ANC works,” said Maimane.
The party also criticised the government’s inability to come up with solutions for the socio-economic crisis plaguing the country, with rising unemployment numbers with the majority of those affected being young people. The unemployment rate sits at 26.6%.
Maimane labelled the various initiatives held this year, such as the jobs summit and the investor conference, as “talk shops”.
“Over the past year, it has become clear that the government has no plan on how to fix the economy, beyond talk-shops, conferences and photo-op summits. 'Investments' announced were simply the re-announcement of old investments, unemployment has gone up and access to jobs is still manipulated to the benefit of connected ANC insiders, often including demanding sex or cash for jobs,” said the DA.
“As unfair a burden placed by the government on ordinary South Africans has been the VAT increase, ballooning bailouts and the spiralling cost of fuel. One might have hoped the recession recovery debate might have offered more responsible alternatives but it was not long until the House found itself processing how R2 billion was looted from VBS bank by the ANC and EFF,” said Maimane.
WATCH: "R2 billion was looted from the #VBSMutulBank by the ANC and the EFF.
The ANC acts only for the connected insiders, poor and vulnerable outsiders comes last." - @jsteenhuisen #2018GovernmentReview pic.twitter.com/kNZtylbF1y
— Democratic Alliance (@Our_DA) December 10, 2018
Maimane also took swipe at the EFF accusing the party of protecting corruption by siding with the ANC to see the removal of Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip.
“The ANC and the EFF have shown in 2018 that they will work together to protect corruption, for example in Nelson Mandela Metro, and to divide the country and undermine private property rights by trying to amend the Constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation.”