Lulletje Rozewater
04-17-2010, 08:43 AM
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe yesterday said they had inherited a “corrupt and a wrong value system” which they were having to manage. “What we inherited actually corrupted us and therefore we are actually managing a corrupt system and a wrong value system,” he said.
“The new order (after 1994) ... inherited a well-entrenched value system that placed individual acquisition of wealth at the very centre of the value system of our society as a whole,” he continued, delivering the Inaugural Violet Seboni Memorial Lecture at the Johannesburg City Hall.
Quoting former President Thabo Mbeki, Mantashe said: “Within the context of the development of capitalism in our country, individual acquisition and material wealth produced through oppression and exploitation of the black majority became the defining social value in the organisation of white society.
“Now because the white minority was the dominant social force in our country, it entrenched in our society as a whole, including among the oppressed, the deep-seated understanding that personal wealth constituted the only true measure of individual and social success.” Societal values had shifted from “revolutionary morality to material ownership”, he said.
The country needed reminding that life was not about “being in business”, he added. “Youth must be informed about participation in academia, in politics, in trade unions, in NGOs and other structures and sectors that serve society if we dream of saving our society.
“Serving our people, not monetary accrual, is the definition of success.”
Mantashe told the hall, packed with Congress of SA Trade Union members, that “prudence, modesty and hard work” should be the image projected by role models in society.
Echoing the ANC in Gauteng, Mantashe cautioned against the apparent “rise of the right wing” which, he charged, was becoming more “confident and willing to take chances”.
The ANC in Gauteng said this was evidenced in organisations like AfriForum using the courts to reverse progress. “It is our responsibility to pay attention to that issue because, where I am seated, I think that is the most clear and glaring challenge facing our movement today.”
He said the right wing had used ANCYL president Julius Malema as a “trigger” to push its own agenda.
He urged unity to build a strong alliance. — Sapa
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma continues to “benefit from corrupt relationships” to this day,
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said yesterday.
Zille wrote in her weekly newsletter that Zuma was “paralysed as a President” and that the ANC, which “needs corruption to survive”, was turning South Africa into “a criminal state”.
“If we dig deep enough, I believe we would discover that Jacob Zuma continues to benefit from corrupt relationships to this day,” Zille said.
“The lifestyle of his family is too lavish to be affordable on his presidential income.
“We wonder how he can spend R65 million – which he has insisted is his own money – renovating his residence at Nkandla. And we marvel at how he can support his wives, his fiancée and 20 children on a single salary.”
Zuma’s family members, including his wives, are involved in over 100 companies “some of which benefit from State contracts”, Zille said.
“It was therefore not surprising that Zuma missed the deadline to declare his financial interests by 10 months, and only disclosed his assets when public pressure forced him to.
“The irresistible inference is that his advisors were sanitising his business interests for public consumption.”
Zille said it was impossible for Zuma to get tough on corruption, “even if he wanted to”, as ANC leaders in the party, the State, and in business had become an interlocked network of patronage and corruption.
“Everyone knows everyone else is corrupt, so they cover up for each other, and abuse power to tighten their grip, undermining independent institutions and eliminating opposition both inside and outside the party.
“In the process, the ANC is turning South Africa into a criminal state.” The ANC, she said, had become a “tenderpreneur-in-chief”.
“It is time for everyone to realise that corruption is not just an aberration in the ANC that must be rooted out from time to time.
“The ANC needs corruption to survive, it is its lifeblood. It needs it to fund its election campaigns. It needs it to pay the loyalty networks necessary for ANC leaders to entrench their power. And it needs corruption to pay for its leadership’s lifestyles.” Zille said the ANC had set up front companies to “institutionalise corruption”.
The most “notorious” of these was Chancellor House Holdings, whose purpose was to “channel tenders and contracts from the ANC in government to the ANC in business in order to enrich the ANC and its leaders”. — Sapa
http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=395250
“The new order (after 1994) ... inherited a well-entrenched value system that placed individual acquisition of wealth at the very centre of the value system of our society as a whole,” he continued, delivering the Inaugural Violet Seboni Memorial Lecture at the Johannesburg City Hall.
Quoting former President Thabo Mbeki, Mantashe said: “Within the context of the development of capitalism in our country, individual acquisition and material wealth produced through oppression and exploitation of the black majority became the defining social value in the organisation of white society.
“Now because the white minority was the dominant social force in our country, it entrenched in our society as a whole, including among the oppressed, the deep-seated understanding that personal wealth constituted the only true measure of individual and social success.” Societal values had shifted from “revolutionary morality to material ownership”, he said.
The country needed reminding that life was not about “being in business”, he added. “Youth must be informed about participation in academia, in politics, in trade unions, in NGOs and other structures and sectors that serve society if we dream of saving our society.
“Serving our people, not monetary accrual, is the definition of success.”
Mantashe told the hall, packed with Congress of SA Trade Union members, that “prudence, modesty and hard work” should be the image projected by role models in society.
Echoing the ANC in Gauteng, Mantashe cautioned against the apparent “rise of the right wing” which, he charged, was becoming more “confident and willing to take chances”.
The ANC in Gauteng said this was evidenced in organisations like AfriForum using the courts to reverse progress. “It is our responsibility to pay attention to that issue because, where I am seated, I think that is the most clear and glaring challenge facing our movement today.”
He said the right wing had used ANCYL president Julius Malema as a “trigger” to push its own agenda.
He urged unity to build a strong alliance. — Sapa
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma continues to “benefit from corrupt relationships” to this day,
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said yesterday.
Zille wrote in her weekly newsletter that Zuma was “paralysed as a President” and that the ANC, which “needs corruption to survive”, was turning South Africa into “a criminal state”.
“If we dig deep enough, I believe we would discover that Jacob Zuma continues to benefit from corrupt relationships to this day,” Zille said.
“The lifestyle of his family is too lavish to be affordable on his presidential income.
“We wonder how he can spend R65 million – which he has insisted is his own money – renovating his residence at Nkandla. And we marvel at how he can support his wives, his fiancée and 20 children on a single salary.”
Zuma’s family members, including his wives, are involved in over 100 companies “some of which benefit from State contracts”, Zille said.
“It was therefore not surprising that Zuma missed the deadline to declare his financial interests by 10 months, and only disclosed his assets when public pressure forced him to.
“The irresistible inference is that his advisors were sanitising his business interests for public consumption.”
Zille said it was impossible for Zuma to get tough on corruption, “even if he wanted to”, as ANC leaders in the party, the State, and in business had become an interlocked network of patronage and corruption.
“Everyone knows everyone else is corrupt, so they cover up for each other, and abuse power to tighten their grip, undermining independent institutions and eliminating opposition both inside and outside the party.
“In the process, the ANC is turning South Africa into a criminal state.” The ANC, she said, had become a “tenderpreneur-in-chief”.
“It is time for everyone to realise that corruption is not just an aberration in the ANC that must be rooted out from time to time.
“The ANC needs corruption to survive, it is its lifeblood. It needs it to fund its election campaigns. It needs it to pay the loyalty networks necessary for ANC leaders to entrench their power. And it needs corruption to pay for its leadership’s lifestyles.” Zille said the ANC had set up front companies to “institutionalise corruption”.
The most “notorious” of these was Chancellor House Holdings, whose purpose was to “channel tenders and contracts from the ANC in government to the ANC in business in order to enrich the ANC and its leaders”. — Sapa
http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=395250