President Cyril Ramaphosa has expressed regrets following the resignation of Dr Mavuso Msimang who was appointed the ANC Veterans League Deputy President about three months ago.
Msimang who confirmed that he will not be joining any political party has been vocal about the failure of the ANC to accelerated services delivery to the people of the country. Load shedding, water crisis, corruption, poor administration, dilapidation of infrastructure and entitlement were some of the issues which subjected him to discontentment.
Msimang is a South African civil servant and politician. He is a co-founder of African Parks, a Johannesburg-based conservation organization, and has also served as CEO of South African National Parks. In the 1960s, he was a member of the military high command of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC.
He said despite trying to speak sense to the ANC leadership he was met with rejection and marginalisation conduct.
“The response of the leadership to this constructive censure has at best, been a shoulder shrug and a promise to do something about it; at worst those who seek change by raising voices endure slurs, or are met with downright hostility,” said Msimang.
“The litany of economic and social woes – crime, unemployment, destitution – associated with my beloved African National Congress is not only embarrassing, but also defies enumeration. It is a matter of public record that for over a decade I have added my voice to many others that have consistently decried and disapproved of corruption and its harmful by-products of nepotism and incompetence.”
Ramaphosa said he holds Msimang in high regards however he reserves a right to his decision. He however took a swipe at Msimang when pressed for comment saying that the membership of the ANC is growing therefore, he accepts his decision to leave the ruling party. “The ANC Veterans League Deputy President has joined the ANC voluntarily like any other ANC member,” Ramaphosa said.
The former ANC stalwart said in his letter that for several years now, the ANC has been wracked by endemic corruption, with devastating consequences on the governance of the country and the lives of poor people, of whom there continue to be so many.
“Of course, the ANC did not invent corruption. We inherited a state that was morally bankrupt and that was built on the most profound forms of corruption. When we took over government in 1994, we had the moral high ground, and the conviction that we would be able to root out the old-boy networks that had benefitted from, and strangled, the apartheid economy. Yet, three decades later, the ANC’s own track record of corruption is a cause of great shame. The corruption we once decried is now part of our movement’s DNA. This has had dire consequences for the most vulnerable members of our society,” Msimang said.
He highlighted over four million people live in shacks that are euphemistically referred to as ‘informal settlements. “And in every town, there are people whom we call beggars, who collect at traffic lights and in town squares. They are not beggars of course, for that is not their identity. They are human beings who have been forced to sacrifice their dignity in part because of my party’s successive failures. We are an organisation that purports to create a better life for all,” former uMkhonto we Sizwe member.
Msimang also lambasted ANC leaders for being pompous and forgetting their mandate of accelerating service deliver to the masses. “As ANC leaders publicly proclaim ownership of obscenely wealthy homesteads and other possessions and send their children to the best schools in the land, there are still many South Africans whose children continue to be exposed to the risk of dropping into pit latrines in poorly equipped public schools and dying horrendous and humiliating deaths. There are children in rural areas who miss classes when streams and rivers are in flood because there are no bridges,” he added.
“How does it come about that raw sewage flows into the Umngeni River and into the sea, polluting eThekwini beaches that have been a traditional holiday destination for black people from inland provinces, some of whom used to travel from as far north as Limpopo, Northwest, Mpumalanga, etc? For what earthly reason did the Gauteng Department of Health think that frail, elderly, and very vulnerable people should be sent into ill-equipped, ill-prepared and ill-funded houses under the guise of unqualified NGOs resulting in the death of some 160 people as happened in the Esidimeni Life scandal?”
Msimang didn’t mince his words when he blasted President Ramaphosa’s administration including his predecessor former President Jacob Zuma. “Businesses are failing, downsizing or simply deciding not to invest anymore in our country where the environment has become entirely disabling for them. As a result, thousands of jobs are being lost at a time when the unemployment rate rages north of 32 percent and 60 percent for persons aged between 15 and 24 years. Inexplicably, you have ministers who attack the very private sector the President is inviting to be an essential “part of a social compact in a programme to rebuild our economy and enable higher growth.”
In relation to government parastatals, Msimang said Eskom has been brought to its knees by high-level corruption and sabotage has literally rendered the nation powerless and all too often left it in the dark. Transnet’s mismanagement has derailed its freight haulage system. In consequence, road transporters who have stepped into the breach sometimes have to wait in 40km-long queues, while belching noxious gases into the atmosphere, because ports are congested.
“The resulting demurrage charges are inevitably, ultimately borne by the consumer. And the worst may yet happen: ships simply avoiding our ports and discharging their cargo in better-run ports elsewhere,” Msimang.
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