Trevor Manuel is telling South Africans not to vote ANC
Trevor Manuel's latest attack on the ANC government's service delivery record is the fourth such incident in three months. Trevor Manuel is at war with the ANC. He has described it as unaccountable, racist, corrupt, and a party that has failed to deliver to the poor. But if Trevor Manuel, as a member of the senior leadership of the ANC, has no confidence in his party's ability to govern, there is no reason why voters should. In short, Trevor Manuel has told South Africans why they should not vote for the ANC.
Consider the string of attacks Mr Manuel has recently launched on his own party's record:
This week, on the issue of delivery, he said: "We must accept that, despite the adequate allocation of funding, we fail to deliver quality services, especially to the poor." And: "We perform poorly, even by our own standards."
On the subject of poverty alleviation, he said on 15 January this year: "We have not been overly successful in eradicating the unfreedoms that [Nobel prize winning economist Amartya] Sen refers to. The effect of these failures is that ... we overly rely on cash grants to poor households. This is better than nothing, but it ... [does not] enable poor households to get out of poverty."
On the ANC government's record on openness, he also said on 15 January: "The [government] bureaucracy resists giving information to people, especially when communities have little voice and are marginalized."
On healthcare, he says: "In many health facilities, especially in poor communities, we often run out of critical medicines. This has little to do with budgets or expenditure. The major supermarket chains, based in rural areas, almost never run out of essentials."
On oversight: "We seem to be unable to use people's power to exert a positive influence on the performance of ground level institutions [like] schools [and] clinics."
On cadre deployment: "We have people in middle-management positions that lack experience and competence. This is due to poor selection procedures, a dearth of skills in the country and in some cases, political interference in appointments".
On ANC corruption, he said on 26 January 2011: "We allow what used to keep us together [during the struggle] to let people do as they please. We should not tolerate corruption, it is wrong, it is stealing from the poor".
And, most famously, on the ANC's official government spokesperson, Jimmy Manyi: "I want to put it to you that [his] statements would make you a racist in the mould of
H F Verwoerd. I want to put it to you that you have the same mind that operated under apartheid."
Trevor Manuel is one of the ANC's most senior and experienced leaders, and he is so unhappy with the ANC's record that he has discarded the party's strict policy of democratic centralism - which requires that all ANC public representatives maintain the party's centrally determined positions on public issues - and the equally rigid doctrine of cabinet consensus - which requires that cabinet ministers maintain a uniform view on the issues of the day - to, in effect, tell South Africans why his party has failed them.
He has ignored Jacob Zuma's instructions not to speak publicly about differences within the ANC.
He has told South Africans why they should not vote ANC on May 18.
He has told South Africans that the ANC is at war with itself, and cannot deliver.
The time has come for voters to choose a party that is united, and committed to service delivery - the Democratic Alliance. We have demonstrated in the City of Cape Town and other municipalities, that where we govern, we deliver a better life for all, step by step.
Statement issued by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, DA National Spokesperson, March 17 2011
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