Newsletter| In a frank interview, former president Thabo Mbeki critiques his successor Jacob Zuma’s ‘thumbsuck’ policies and slams cadre deployment
In a frank interview, Mbeki critiques his successor’s ‘thumbsuck’ policies and slams cadre deployment
Mbeki led the ANC to a majority of 69.7% in 2004 a historic high and the economy was growing by more than 5% when he left.Mbeki traces this decline to the Polokwane conference, and his recall as president the following year. “There were very simple things which we tried to explain, like we need to be very careful about this important matter of budget deficits,” Mbeki said.“Because in the end, we would be taxing people in order to pay the banks. There will not be any money to build schools and clinics and all of that. These people who were talking about the 1996 class project would say no, it is neoliberalism. The proper management of the fiscus has become a problem again now.
“I said: ‘Why, what do they do?’ And he said: ‘Nothing; they come to work and they play Patience on the computer, and Solitaire.’He also believes government failed to properly study the causes and best responses to the 2008 global financial crisis. “Populist” policies are only avoided when existing policy is examined and amended in a rational way, Mbeki says. Instead, race became the focus.
“We looked at that report and said this is too early, because we inherited a civil service made up of the old civil service under the apartheid system, plus the civil servants who came from the bantustans.
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