South Africa on the edge! National renewal needed urgently

WITH various leaders and commentators having suggested that things have gone horribly wrong in South Africa since Cyril Ramaphosa became president more than five years ago, to such an extent that the country could be facing imminent state and economic collapse.

South Africans must act and rebuild their country before its too late.

And talking to people on the streets, some even die-hard ANC members and supporters. You get a sense that if South Africans don't' stand up now and take charge of the running of their country, by the time the situation reaches total collapse, it could be little to late for the once powerful African giant, with the most promising future.

One ANC activist who is clearly anti-Ramaphosa doesn't mince his words on what is really happening in South Africa.

According to this activist, Ramaphosa is on a mission to weaken and even destroy the ANC and South Africa.

The activist suggests that if the ANC is weakened then it will be easy for Ramaphosa do as he wishes with the organization.

He will then be in a more powerful position to sell the country to the foreign backers.

The activist further remarked on the matter of the ANC's failure to pay its staff as another Ramaphosa move to destroy Africa's oldest liberation movement.

And as for South Africa, Ramaphosa's Western backers are hellbent on owning South Africa. To this, the activist charged that the R1,5 trillion Ramaphosa has attracted is not meant to develop the economy and create jobs.

But according to this activist the R1,5 trillion invested that Ramaphasa has attracted is reward for selling State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to his backers, with the bulk of this money landing on Ramaphosa and his cronies.

The activist is convinced that the bigger plan is to sell the country to Ramaphosa's foreign backers in which Ramaphosa and his cronies will be secured forever financially and otherwise.

And the Phala Phala scandal was further proof that corruption in South Africa has grown under Ramaphosa, the activist further asserts.

The activist notes that Ramaphosa wants to position himself as the face of South Africa overtaking Nelson Mandela as the hero of South Africa. He states that Ramaphosa having lead the creation of the Constitution, is now cementing his legacy as the country's greatest leader ever and the he wants to be the identity of South Africa, all this he does with the backing of his Western backers.

"Ramaphosa has ignore all the Reports that have landed on his desk. He is untouchable and is not planning to step down. He is staying in power as he has been gradually gaining dominance of the ANC," added the ANC activist.

According to a 2021 survey as reported by Business Day, "South Africans believe that corruption in SA has got worse under Cyril Ramaphosa's administration, including in the office of the president itself, in contrast to much more positive perceptions when he first entered office."

And this was a key finding of the 2021 Afrobarometer survey, an independent pan-Africa research network that interviewed 1,600 South Africans in May and June in 2021.

Speaking to Power FM last year, Political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki, who is also the brother of former president Thabo Mbeki, painted a scathing picture of Cyril Ramaphosa's leadership, saying the president is not a leader but a party agent.

"The man has totally failed as a president, he can't decide on anything, but many people believe he can save South Africa."

"Cyril is not a leader really. He was never a leader. He is an apparatchik or an agent of the party but he presents himself as a leader. He's not a leader – if you put him next to Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and even Jacob Zuma." added Mbeki.

Mbeki had also noted that Ramaphosa fails as a leader because he does not believe in anything.

"He goes with the flow. He wakes up in the morning and says 'which way is the wind blowing' and 'I'm gonna go that way'."

Mbeki had words of hope for the country though, "I think South Africa is a great country. We have a very poor government and many people mistake the government for the people of South Africa or for the country. We have a very poor and under-performing government with all the malaises you have listed as a result of poor government. I think South Africa is still a functioning country and it functions because of the people."

Speaking on SABC News earlier this year, Moeletsi Mbeki said the country would suffer "more pain" from corruption in the next 15 months because ANC members will feed their pockets thinking that after next year's election the party will no longer be in power.

"Corruption is in government by the public officials. That is where the heart of corruption in this country is. The irony and the painful part about it is the closer the ANC gets to losing power, the more corruption we are going to see," said Mbeki.

Mbeki added that South Africa was not better off under the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa.

"For the last 10 years, the per capita income of South Africans has been declining, which means we have been getting poorer and we are still getting poorer today. So we are not better off."

"The control over corruption has not happened, the recommendations of the Zondo commission have hardly been implemented. But the other side is the lack of efficiency by the government," noted Mbeki.

Late in 2022, during a press conference held in Johannesburg, former president Jacob Zuma went on an all-out attack, accusing Ramaphosa of putting the interests of his funders and the global community before those of the country and its people.

Zuma said: Ramaphosa's conducting private business at the Phala Phala farm while serving as president of the country was corrupt and unconstitutional.

"Conducting private business while holding the high office of president is nothing but corruption, which is inconsistent with the nature of that office and the Constitution. It's inconsistent with the oath of office taken by the president and those who defend such deeds, both in the executive and the legislature, commit treason against our Constitution.

"Suffice to say that your president has committed treason. No president should conduct private business while in office," said Zuma.

In reference to the Ramaphosa administration, Zuma remarked, "People have in recent years been blinded by the fact that we now have democratically elected black governments. They're blinded from seeing that our elected governments are still expected to serve the commercial interests of colonial powers ahead of those of the people who elect them."

Zuma added that the country's problems were too big for a president who was busy hustling on the side.

He said: "I'm assuming that what President Ramaphosa has said about the many dollars under his bed or in his furniture shows it's true that he conducts private businesses while serving as president of our country. That, on its own, is unconstitutional and those who applaud him for doing so commit the most disgusting transgression."

But it was an audio tape by a Black South African who has worked in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) by all accounts, that paints a more horrifying and brutal picture of a more horrific story of the 'state of affairs' in the democratic republic.

In the tape, the citizen shares a conversation he had with a leading Black investment professional and banker.

The banker is troubled about the nature of his discoveries of many senior government leader and political heads who have a PLAN B.

According to the banker, these people have offshore accounts and are buying houses overseas on a massive scale.

Should the situation become unbearable and South Africa totally collapses, then they will leave South Africans behind for greener pastures elsewhere in the world, according to the conversation on the audio tape.

The view among the two is that this is because the post 1994 government has damaged or destroyed so many of the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and that the plan is to sell them to private buyers which will mean that they stand to profit from such transactions.

The two also assert that if it wasn't for the whites still left in the SANDF, there would not be any Defence Force in the country.

Their view, stems from military vehicles across the country that have been broken for years but have not been fixed, including military vehicles just standing there with no wheels.

Although they don't stretch as to what is the contribution of whites in the army is, they are quite adamant that the country's security forces are ill equip to defend the nation against any foreign attack.

They also say that the plan is for Patrice Motsepe and Ramaphosa's families to own the economy of the country with their cronies locally and internationally.

Furthermore, the two allege that government is borrowing trillions to pay civil servants but does not disclose this to South Africans of the huge loans it makes from these international borrowers.

They also warn that South Africans may wake up too late, when they realize they can not even get social grants anymore.

They two are outraged that the government has no plan for economic development and job creation. They can't fix anything. "We are in a mess," they add.

Whether the views expressed hear are accurate or not, one thing is clear South Africans can not afford to sit by and watch their country growing or falling without the citizens playing their part in fixing and building their country.

Oh, there's the water crisis as well to be fixed. With 17 people reported to have died in Gauteng province due to unclean water. Apparently the crisis is national.

Mgudlwa is an award-winning journalist