ANC leaders should focus on the issues that affect people, says Magashule

Suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule said South Africans were looking to the party's leadership to address issues affecting the country, including high unemployment.

Magashule was speaking to Kaya FM's Phemelo Motene on Tuesday evening on a number of topics, including his suspension.

Magashule said he hoped the impasse surrounding his removal from the powerful party structure would be resolved. He described the debate about the “step aside” rule — which is, essentially, that members charged for serious crimes should vacate their posts — as part of the body politic of the ANC.

Magashule said one of the elders posed a question to him about why the ANC was in a hurry to implement the “step aside” resolution when other resolutions that were adopted a long time ago by the ANC — including nationalising the Reserve Bank, expropriation of land without compensation and creating a state bank — were not being implemented.

“I hope that it is politics. Our people are looking at us to address the issue of unemployment today. It is 42%. Almost 11.7m people are unemployed,” Magashule said.

He said there were problems about those who had been recently retrenched and how they were surviving.

“These are issues that the ANC as leader of society [should] be focusing on,” Magashule said.

Magashule said it is not true that all the resolutions of the ANC have not been implemented. He cited free basic education. “We expect our deployees to respect our resolutions and implement them,” Magashule said.

He said the basic income grant idea has been discussed for a number of years.

“You do not conclude by saying, without even trying, to say those resolutions are difficult to implement.”

Magashule said the ANC needed to address the needs of the poor.

On his asbestos tender matter before court, Magashule said he wished the case would go ahead and not take so long.

“I am ready. If I am charged I would prove in the court of law that the charges were flimsy. It is not for the first time. I have complained about state organs being used selectively against certain people,” he said.

TimesLIVE