Firstly I would like to applaud the Minister of Finance, Mr. Trevor Manuel for the beautiful speech that he made on the 11th February 2009. The most exciting part about it is that, Education is going to receive more budget injection, though these finances are not equally accessible to everyone, especially people living in the rural areas. I find it unfair, given the fact that one of the missions and visions of the government is that resources be shared equally among citizens irrespective of the geographical areas they reside in. I believe if government can redress that problem, then this country can look forward to a bright future. Secondly, Phumzile Mlabo-Ncguka was still the vice president of our country, there was an ASGISA programme which was being spoken about in political circles, so I was expecting the whole country to be briefed on the developments made by the programme. Nothing was ever mentioned. Nonetheless, I hope that if Baleka Mbete continues as the deputy to the president, she will pursue this project.
One other issue which caught my attention throughout the budget speech was Social Development. Surely the ruling party has sharpened its spears from all the angles to ensure that despite the level of poverty in this country, it creates better living standards for all; and that is worth being applauded, more especially the proposed date of qualifying for an old age grant. Moving away from the good news, there is always one person within the party who is always patronizing their efforts by going all out to attach statements which disregard the credibility of the party. Not surprisingly, the same leadership has always let that person get away with much mischief and this is costing the ANC a series of defects.
I was watching the news the other day and the President of the Youth League made a very offensive statement about the Minister of Education, spitting silly sentiments about her “fake accent” and incompetence. Prior to that, he went all out in one of their elections campaigns in the Province of Kwa-Zulu Natal to provoke a war of words between the ANC and the Inkata Freedom Party. I was very much agitated by his articulations about the ANC being able to recruit loyal members of the IFP! He was not reprimanded by the ANC leadership.It was only after the Naledi Pandor incident that they saw a necessity for him to make an apology, and given the medium on which the initial statement was made against the Minister, surely almost everybody was expecting him to make a public apology. Instead it was done formally by means of a letter. I am not implying that the gentleman was supposed to be subjected to a media briefing. Ms Duarte indicated that Malema would be requested to make an apology to the Minister.
To me, the calculations are very straight and forward. If Malema made that statement in the interest of the students at TUT, surely the same medium of expression should have been utilized; hence he was at the time, under a pretext that he was representing the interests of the student. Do all these antics translate to equality and fairness?
