In a wide-ranging interview to reflect on the three decades of democracy, and challenges and solutions for South Africa, outspoken political economist and analyst Moeletsi Mbeki listed the governing ANC’s five mortal sins.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela. | Former South African president Thabo Mbeki. | Kgalema Motlanthe, who served as South African president between 25 September 2008 and 9 May 2009. | Former South African president Jacob Zuma. | South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“The ANC adopted the BBBEE policies that were started by business to ingratiate itself with the new ANC rulers by giving money and shares to individuals like Dr Nthato Motlana, Cyril Ramaphosa, Patrice Motsepe, Saki Macozoma, Tokyo Sexwale and other individuals connected to the ANC. “The current forms of BBBEE and affirmative action, as implemented, confirms the stereotype that blacks are inferior to whites and they cannot create wealth on their own, and thus need white handouts to survive.”Although the private sector was correct to implement BBBEE, it has had a catastrophic effect as a state policy, Mbeki says.
“The most discriminated-against group in South Africa is the coloured community. They were uprooted from their countries in Africa and Asia to come to South Africa to endure 200 years of slavery. Their living standards now have not improved much from the time when they were under slavery. BBBEE and affirmative action discriminate against them, and discriminate against Indians and whites.
A Transnet logo at the Port of Durban in South Africa, 25 May 2018. Mbeki believes that, for all intents and purposes, the ANC was not ready to govern South Africa and its complex economy when it took over the country in 1994. And once it took over, it repeated a number of mistakes committed by post-independence countries in the north.
“A banker by the name of Mark Barnes approached the government with a vision to turn around the SA Post Office and its subsidiary, Postbank. “For the past 15 years, the South African economy has been growing backwards. This has been largely due to the underperformance of state-owned enterprises – Eskom and Transnet, both of which have been major obstacles to the growth of the economy. Eskom cannot provide an uninterrupted supply of energy to power the growth of the economy, and we cannot export our minerals and goods to international markets because of the problems overwhelming Transnet.
Mbeki doesn’t believe that White Monopoly Capital exists. “This term was coined by a conservative British PR company, Bell Pottinger, that had worked closely with former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. “Poor people, especially black youngsters, have become addicted to this drug. The ANC government has turned a blind eye to this.”
South Africa is the land of milk and honey for thousands of Zimbabweans streaming across the border. This elderly woman illegally enters South Africa near Beit Bridge border post, August 2007.
“In the days of dangerous enemies like the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado’s Islamist insurgents, every country has to know the identities of people entering and going out. Here, there are many people whom the government doesn’t know anything about because they entered the country illegally,” he said.“Will the ANC repent and seek absolution for these mortal sins before the coming elections? I doubt it.
“Neither the ANC nor South Africa’s opposition parties offer solutions to the huge amount of poverty in the country, especially in the former homelands. They also have no solutions to the de-industrialisation of the country’s economy. None of the political parties has the policies or the capacity to solve the multitude of problems facing the country,” he said.
“All liberation organisations in Africa have never survived long after liberation because they fail to fulfil the promises, and people start to turn against them. The regimes then start using repressive methods inherited from their former colonial masters and weaponise these against the people or the opposition.
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