Ramaphosa has been part of the ANC for almost 30 years (Gallo Images / Die Burger / Lulama Zenzile)
No ‘individuals or families’ will capture our state institutions, Ramaphosa warns
The deputy president had a strong message for those who would seek to dispossess South Africans of a government for and by the people.
Ramaphosa has been part of the ANC for almost 30 years (Gallo Images / Die Burger / Lulama Zenzile)
Deputy – for now – president Cyril Ramaphosa has taken a more considered approach and looks to be steering clear of the populism plaguing the ANC.
Watch: Ramaphosa throws some serious shade at ‘leaders who don’t listen to their citizens’
Chatting to folks at a Black Business Council event on Wednesday, Ramaphosa warned people against falling for ‘revolutionary’ slogans aimed at fooling the public.
“We have now become a country of many slogans where everyone wakes up and comes up with a slogan,” he said, adding that there are those who would factionalise the ANC for their own purposes.
At the end of the year the ANC goes to the polls to elect a new party president and, while Jacob Zuma and his allies are pushing for his ex-wife to become the next president of the party – a move that will destroy what’s left of the ANC and cost them the 2019 general election – a growing number of moderates are pushing for Ramaphosa to become president.
Ramaphosa’s stance on so-called ‘radical economic transformation’ – which is, essentially, nothing more than normal economic transformation dressed up in populist but ultimately vacuous colours – looks to follow that of ANC alliance partner the SACP as well as what intellectuals are left in the ANC in the wake of camp Zuma’s repeated pogroms.
The deputy president drove home his plans on rooting out corruption within the ruling party, before touching on the issue of state capture.
“We will also not allow the institutions of our state to be captured by anyone, be they, individuals, be they families that are intent on narrow self-enrichment,” he said, adding that government has a long way to go in terms of changing its business model to include more black businesses and professionals instead of merely maintaining the status quo of big corporations and predominantly white-owned corporate.
“It is not correct that our black professionals, be [they] lawyers, be they accountants, be they asset managers, be they engineers, should languish in inactivity,” he said, adding that government – read ‘his’ government – will change that.
