‘Amandla the ANC of Mandela, Sisulu and Kathrada’ – Gordhan
Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan took indirect jabs at president Jacob Zuma during an address at late ANC stalwart Ahmed Kathrada’s memorial service on Thursday.
Gordhan opened his address by shouting “Amandla” to a loud response from the audience. He followed up with “Amandla ANC”, which received a more muted response, before adding “Amandla the ANC of Mandela, Sisulu and Kathrada”.
The former finance minister delivered many quips about recent events, referring to himself as jobless, acknowledging his former colleagues Derek Hanekom and Mcebisi Jonas.
His spoke at length about how South Africans should follow Kathrada’s way of life and serve the country with the same vigour. He said that the concepts of “radical transformation” and “social justice” and “non-racialism” should be more than simple political slogans, and that the constitution should be upheld.
“We should all be upset if a child goes hungry at night. We should all be upset if children still have to study under trees, if we know there is money in today’s budget to build schools.
“But if a R30 million or R35 million school is going to cost R100 million because somebody wants to pocket the other R60 million, we won’t get there,” he said.
Gordhan said that South Africans need to work together to pull people out of poverty, and work despite recent events, such as the downgrade. As an aside, the former minister took a jab at president Zuma:
“We didn’t need the downgrade, if only we had just behaved ourselves.”
But Gordhan also warned against “creeping authoritarianism”, and the abuse of state institutions which were not doing their job and rather criminalising honest people.
“We’re running the risk in south Africa that honest people don’t want to participate in government institutions anymore – and when you’ve reached that point, then you know we’ve handed this country over to a bunch of gangsters.”
In a final slight to Zuma at the conclusion of his address, Gordhan said that he remains hopeful that the ANC will emerge out of the difficulties it finds itself in – and that it will become the ANC of Mandela, Sisulu and Kathrada once more.
In a less subtle address ahead of Gordhan, the SACP’s Jeremy Cronin spoke out against Zuma and the Gupta family, restating the SACP’s position that government officials should be audited, and the Gupta family’s citizenship removed.
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