Anyone who doubted SA was going to escape Zim's fate has this to chew on now.
Regards, Ivan
Posted on 12/16/2002 3:33:35 PM PST by MadIvan
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki used his speech to the African National Congress’s convention yesterday to blame corruption in South African society on 300 years of white minority rule.
The speech was seen as his response to a series of scandals, including the collapse of the ANC’s government in the Eastern Cape and charges that senior ANC members took bribes in a multimillion-pound arms deal.
Those scandals have helped to undermine investor confidence in South Africa and in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development — Mr Mbeki’s own initiative to promote good governance throughout Africa.
Speaking at Stellenbosch University, Mr Mbeki said that most corrupt practices were “a legacy of the past . . . that encompasses a period of 300 years of white minority rule, during which the dominant groups pursued the personal accumulation of wealth.
“During the apartheid years, various cabals developed in South Africa. These were self-serving networks committed to accumulating wealth through corrupt practices.
“These included politicians, business people, civil servants, the law enforcement agencies, professionals, medical practitioners, media workers and gangsters operating in organised crime networks.”
He was forced to concede, however, that some members of the ANC had used their positions of power to line their own pockets.
Mr Mbeki’s speech was wide-ranging, but he made only two passing references to Zimbabwe and to the Aids epidemic that has infected one in nine South Africans.
He was also interrupted by the late arrival of Nelson Mandela, the former President, who received a standing ovation from the delegates.
After calling the meeting to order, a visibly irritated Mr Mbeki acknowledged that “serious strains” had emerged between the ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, the junior members of the tripartite ruling alliance, who have been highly critical of the Government’s economic policies.
But he was adamant that the ANC would not budge from its commitment to sound monetary policy, budgetary discipline and the privatisation of public industries.
Dismissing the recent series of bombings in Johannesburg and Pretoria by right-wing extremists as “a delayed echo of a desperate struggle that failed”, Mr Mbeki said that the men of violence would not be allowed to “derail South Africa’s efforts towards reconciliation and non-racialism”.
He also dismissed Afrikaner complaints that they are being marginalised. “The professions, management and skilled workers continue to be dominated by whites,” he said.
Signalling a renewed drive to boost black participation in the economy, Mr Mbeki said that he wanted to promote international understanding that it is “natural” for an African country to have black people among the “ownership, management and skills” structures of its economy.
This was part of the ANC’s wider objective of building a “non-racial society”. But he added that increased black participation should not mean a less efficient economy.
Anyone who doubted SA was going to escape Zim's fate has this to chew on now.
Regards, Ivan
After reading this I have an uneasy feeling.
It looks like they are going back to the savagery that previously existed. Apartheid was ended too soon to save black Africa..
Can we run that one by the Egyptians?
I love that bit about the Communist Party being critical of gov't economic policy. LOL!
It is certain they have the know-how and have built a bomb in the past. SA has uranium.
Regards, Ivan
Richard W.
The cold, hard facts are that black Africans are as capable of behaving criminally as other human beings are and do not need to be trained to do so!
Anyone who argues that black Africans had to be taught by whites about how to behave criminally should probably be dragged off and "necklaced", eh?!
Go Fighting Whities!
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