President Cyril Ramaphosa says he's hoping the ANC's alliance partner, the SA Communist Party (SACP), which has indicated it would contest the local government elections on its own, will rethink its decision.
"We have said we don't agree with that. We are obviously saying also, this is going to fragment our unity," said Ramaphosa in an interview with the SABC on Thursday.
"It [SACP's contestation] is going to weaken us and we want the SACP to rethink the entire process, and I am hoping that way before the elections, there will be a rethink and we will be back together and re-examine precisely how we should work together."
He sought to clarify his statement during a meeting with 6,000 ANC councillors where he said they should learn from the DA.
Ramaphosa said his statement was lost in translation. "We all must learn from each other and that is important. That I will say also as the president of the Republic. There are a number of areas where good work is being done and there are others where there is weakness. Mature people must look at both and say, how can we improve the lives of South Africans by looking at what others do and improving on it. It is a two-way process," he said.
"It should never be anyone, say from the DA, standing on the rooftop and saying, 'the president said this about us', and others saying, 'why did he say it?'. It should be, this is a call for all of us to be sober. If we do what Oliver Tambo said we should do, learn from everyone, then you are able to bring changes in people's lives
"It was to say, our people are crying out for better service delivery. Our people want to see those they elected serving them better. Our people want to see potholes closed, they want to see less sewage getting into their houses. I even said, if anyone of us seated in that room were to find sewage water spilling into their homes, they will take action immediately.
"They will not pause even for a single day. So, I was reinvigorating that approach, saying treat it like your home, make sure that there is water. The pothole in front of somebody's house must be as bad as the pothole in front of your house, which you must then take action to repair. You must communicate with the people and be honest and stop stealing the public's money."
He said ANC officials were delaying in implementing change but that was about to change.
"We have put in place monitoring mechanisms. We have also said we should have rapid response teams. We should be reporting within three months, six months and nine months and mark the progress that is being made. I'm confident that we are going to see change.
In the past, we also had state capture that held us back, particularly in debilitating and weakening our state-owned enterprises which play a critical role in the economic life of our country. The network industries were negatively affected, as in electricity and in logistics.
— President Cyril Ramaphosa
"Change is the only way in which we move forward. The people who were in the meeting demonstrated to me that they are committed. The infighting has also led to drawing us back and delaying the progress. We have said that infighting must stop so that we must serve the people."
Ramaphosa said one of the things that have contributed to slow economic growth was lack of reforms.
"In the past, we also had state capture that held us back, particularly in debilitating and weakening our state-owned enterprises which play a critical role in the economic life of our country. The network industries were negatively affected, as in electricity and in logistics.
"The goods that we produce ... we could not take out for exports because our rail has really been badly affected, our roads and ports. We even delayed in releasing the spectrum for faster internet connectivity and reducing the cost of data.
"Many of those areas needed reforms. We have started with the reforms... We have been breaking down the silos and move ahead with speed with our reforms. Am I satisfied with what we are achieving? Yes and no. No because I want us to move faster. We now need to move faster.
"We now need to look at local government. We need to introduce reforms that are going to enable our local government to work. Reform is now the order of the day. It [reform] will unlock the levers of our economy and it will make our country much more investor-attractive, both local and international investors will look at our country and say, 'these people are serious'. They are ensuring that electricity is sustainable, which we are doing and have done."
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