Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe has warned that South Africans face a bleak year following the re-election of “auctioneer” President Cyril Ramaphosa within the governing ANC.
Seepe said none of the leaders elected at the ANC’s Nasrec conference last month have what it takes to change the fortunes of the majority of South Africans.
“The outcome of the ANC’s elective conference does not resolve any of the challenges that South Africans face. New evidence suggests that the country will face the worst electricity blackouts this year.
“The darkness that comes with the mismanagement of Eskom’s energy is a reflection of the darkness our economy will be facing this year,” Seepe warned.
He said Eskom was partly to blame for the economic woes the country will grapple with this year.
“The International Monetary Fund’s economic outlook for South Africa doesn’t look good. There is little investor confidence. The notion of job creation has become elusive.
“Companies need energy security to operate. KFC has indicated that its business is no longer sustainable because they require constant cooking, but they can’t do that when there’s no reliable electricity supply,” Seepe said.
He criticised Ramaphosa for making deals that prejudiced national energy security, while securing energy for other countries.
“Big countries are busy stockpiling coal while the president is busy auctioning our energy and country to the highest bidder.
“… He is actually auctioning off the future of this country because we are rewarded with loans to abandon coal, while we remain in the dark.”
Seepe said South Africans should pin their hopes on opposition parties continuing to hold Ramaphosa accountable for the Phala Phala farm scandal. “Almost all the opposition parties are in agreement that they will not let the Phala Phala issue go, until the president has been held to account,” he said.
“Ramaphosa has been hiding behind ‘due process’ while trying to cover his tracks. No one is buying the story of a Sudanese businessman buying buffalo. If the story was true the president wouldn’t have spent so much time ducking and diving.
“He has been pretending to be clean but it’s no longer working,” Seepe said.
The professor said opposition parties were the only hope because the ANC was compromised.
“Many (ANC) people who have been elected or re-elected to leadership positions are corruption suspects. That means the fight against corruption will not be addressed.
“If opposition parties fail, voters will have to wait for 2024 because they have already started rejecting the ANC and booing its leader,” Seepe said.
Pretoria News