President Cyril Ramaphosa says his administration has made “significant progress” in fighting the scourge of corruption and strengthening the state’s capacity to deliver basic services to communities and businesses to create much-needed jobs.
Speaking to the media in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening, following the ANC’s election manifesto launch on Monday ahead of the municipal elections on November 1, Ramaphosa said his party wanted to create jobs and sustainable livelihoods for SA’s 12-million unemployed people. The country is battling an unemployment rate of 34.4%, the highest in the world.
The president said the governing party wanted to harness the state’s capabilities to support investment and engender local economic growth for small and medium enterprises, “with a view of creating jobs”.
“At local level, this means getting the basics right [by] providing a reliable supply of electricity, water and managing municipal finances; and maintaining roads and infrastructure. All the basics that our people want to see in our local communities,” Ramaphosa said in his opening remarks.
Ramaphosa said the ANC’s 2017 national elective conference, where he was elected ANC president, gave the party a mandate to renew and rebuild the ANC and end state capture, which has cost SA an estimated R500bn.
The ANC mandate was to also fight corruption and restore the economy to a sustainable growth path, he said.
The upcoming local government elections “are an opportunity for us to extend what we have been doing at national level to the local level of government”.
“Economic structural reforms have been called for by the business sector, trade union movement, various organisations of our people … a bit of progress has been made to that effect,” he said.
“We have made progress in fighting corruption and rebuilding public institutions … we provided relief to ordinary South Africans, to businesses that operate in our country, to workers and households. We have also made progress in creating job opportunities to a number of people….”
It was important to demonstrate to South Africans that the ANC was “indeed making progress … that we are delivering on the mandate that we were given more than two years ago, and that we can indeed deliver on commitments we are making on the manifesto”.
Delivering on the ANC mandate was also a demonstration to the business sector that “we are reforming our organisation”.
“We have already demonstrated that we are doing quite a lot to change the trajectory of state, state institutions and strengthening the capacity of the state,” said Ramaphosa.
Asked whether he thought the ANC should be dismantled to save SA’s future, Ramaphosa, chuckled and said: “The hopes and aspirations of our country, and I would dare to say, the future of SA is totally wrapped up in the future of the ANC.”
He said the governing party had been the mainstay in the lives of the people since 1912. While it had gone through various trials and tribulations, and moments of victory and exhilaration, “there is no way the ANC can be disbanded. The ANC is not going to be dismantled. We refuse that it should be dismantled”.
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