He maintained that the ANC’s leadership would make job creation a primary focus, with state-owned companies being used as drivers for creating jobs.
WHILE President Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign trail for the upcoming 108th birthday bash of the ANC was hampered by persistent rains in the Northern Cape yesterday, he insisted that the governing party had done its best to deliver quality services for the poor in the Province. Ramaphosa, who was visiting Mountain View in Pampierstad, was drumming up support for the ANC’s much anticipated anniversary in Kimberley, where the party will hold a rally on Saturday.
He said that while he was also affected by the bad roads, there were other services that were delivered by the ANC-led government and for which people were thankful despite their complaints about roads and living conditions.
“I have seen the RDP houses we have built. I went inside them and spoke with the people who stay in those houses. They told me clearly about the struggles you are facing here. They thanked me for the houses,” Ramaphosa said.
With muddied shoes and accompanied by Northern Cape Premier Zamani Saul, he told the few residents who braved the rain that he had witnessed himself how bad the road infrastructure in the area was, where there were also no street lights.
“I agreed with the premier that the roads here need fixing. We cannot take our country forward with roads like these,” he said.
Ramaphosa insisted that his government was also not sleeping on the job in terms of addressing unemployment and drought, which are ravaging the Province.
“We are not the only ones in the whole world. Many other countries if you look at countries like Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Eswatini, just around us, even Botswana. Many of those countries have the same problems that we have of not having jobs. Now we are focusing all our attention on coming up with strategies and plans and interventions to create jobs.”
He maintained that the ANC’s leadership would make job creation a primary focus, with state-owned companies being used as drivers for creating jobs.
When confronted with the crisis at Eskom, Ramaphosa called on South Africans to give the power utility’s leadership, under its new chief executive Andre de Ruyter, a chance to address its problems. This comes after new unplanned power cuts returned a few days into the new year.
“The load shedding that keeps coming is because of the maintenance challenges. Those are known problems and we are addressing them. In the end, we will need to be maintaining those power stations so that we repair them and put them on a better footing.”
He pointed out that South Africans had to be patient.
“I know that as South Africans we are impatient. We want everything to have been fixed yesterday and on an ongoing basis, but it will be. All I am saying is that we are addressing those problems.”
Ramaphosa also called on residents to attend the ANC’s biggest annual rally to hear what the party is planning to deliver to South Africans in the year ahead and further indicated that despite the party’s shortcomings it remained the most capable to deliver services to citizens as it was the oldest on the continent.
Leaders of the ANC’s alliance partners, the SACP, Cosatu and Sanco, are among the speakers that are billed to deliver messages of support at the event on Saturday.
