Johannesburg - The African Transformation Movement (ATM) and the United Democratic Movement have slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa for suggesting that his term in office has failed to produce results due to state capture and the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Sunday, Ramaphosa, whose term in office kicked off on a promise of a “new dawn” in 2018, admitted defeat and failure as president.
The president, however, laid the blame squarely at the door of Covid-19 and state capture while speaking on the sidelines of the ANC NEC meeting at the Birchwood Hotel.
At the start of his term, Ramaphosa promised millions of jobs, smart cities, roads, houses and other infrastructure.
During his State of The Nation Address in 2021, Ramaphosa announced that several new post-apartheid cities were being conceptualised across the country.
None of these promises have materialised more than six years into his term of office.
“We are one people, committed to working together to find jobs for our youth; to build factories, roads, houses and clinics to prepare our children for a world of change and progress; to build cities and towns where families may be safe, productive and content,” Ramaphosa told South Africans in February 2018.
Ramaphosa told the media that the challenges during the course of his administration had been enormous.
“The period that I became president has possibly become the most challenging period by any president the democratic era has ever faced.
“No other president has gone through or has faced the challenges that not only I have faced, but the whole country has faced,” he said.
Ramaphosa blamed Covid-19, state capture and the sluggish economic outlook as some of the stumbling blocks to his new dawn.
“The other day, I was counting various challenges and came to about 14 that have really been so huge as to impede our way. State capture, which none of my predecessors dealt with. State capture, in more ways than one, really broke down the capability of the state in a variety of ways to a point where various institutions of the state have been broken down and cannot function as they should have,” Ramaphosa added.
“The challenge of unemployment is that our economy has not been able to create sufficient jobs for a very long time, and it continues to rise.
“In 2008, it was a defining moment when our job-creation levels started to go down. But this has been going on for a long time, and we come in at a time when the economic challenges that face our country and the world. In many ways, we have done what we could in the interests of South Africans,” he said.
However, speaking to The Star yesterday, ATM spokesperson Zama Ntshona said it was accurate that Ramaphosa’s term was affected by state capture and Covid-19.
“Ramaphosa knows very well that by the time he took office, the so-called capture by the Guptas was already being dealt with.
“The Guptas were being dealt with by the other faction of capturers; capture has always been there. Ramaphosa knows the actual capturers of the state, so he can’t blame capture for his failures,” Ntshona said.
Ramaphosa’s failure to create the two million jobs he promised at the start of his term was due to the mismanagement of the country’s economy, he added.
“He has badly mismanaged the economy. For the party that has been in government for the longest, he has been engaged in consultations that have taken forever. Ramaphosa is not the leader of a new party; he can’t then tell us the mismanagement of the country’s economy is a new phenomenon; he can’t pass the buck as the ANC has run the state to a state of paralysis,” he said.
Ntshona’s sentiments were echoed by UDM leader General Bantu Holomisa, who said Ramaphosa had not taken any decisive action to ensure that the country moved forward.
“You have been too slow, Mr President, even to deal with Cabinet ministers who were fingered by the Zondo Commission. You allowed (Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede) Mantashe and others to stop Justice Ngcobo’s panel report,” Holomisa said in a tweet.
The Star