[South Africa] Mbeki pledges to tackle poverty and corruption as South African local elections start

from Black Britain

President Thabo Mbeki has promised to fight the poverty of poor South Africans whose lives have not changed since the ANC gained power 12 years ago.

In a rally to mark the ANC’s 94th anniversary over the weekend, he addressed 25,000 people in Cape Town vowing to invest £37 billion (400 billion rands) over the next five years towards improving education and health care. All houses will have access to clean water and sanitation by 2010 and electricity by 2012.

Mr Mbeki also assured voters before elections on March 1 that he would halve the unemployment rate of 27% and raise the skill levels in labour.

“We are determined to halve unemployment by 2014, to provide skills required by the economy and ensure that all South Africans are fully able to enjoy the full dignity of freedom,” He said.

His speech comes at a time when the majority poor blacks are feeling disheartened and beginning to losing patience with the slow progress in the delivery of housing and basic facilities promised to them when apartheid was abolished in 1994 and the ANC given power.

During his six years in power Mbeki has kept public spending to a minimum to ensure economic growth. In the past year, public frustration has reared itself through riots and demonstrations against local councils, some of which have been found to be corrupt.

Despite the government spending nearly 30 billion rands to build 1.8 million new homes since 1994, the number of households living in shacks rose from 1.45 million to 1.84 million - a 26 per cent increase.

In a statement, opposing party - The Democratic Alliance said: “The protests over poor delivery around the country last year have demonstrated that people are losing patience with ANC elitism and cronyism. The local election promises to be a very rude awakening for the ANC.”

Mbeki pledged to stamp out corruption, he said there would be“frontline fighters against corruption to ensure that nobody uses his or her position in government to steal from the people to line their pockets, for instance by giving contracts to their friends in return for kickbacks.”

Political experts predict the majority of votes will stay with the ANC but with a significant reduction which will reflect disillusionment with Mbeki’s leadership style.