ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa launched a full-scale attack on the DA, branding them a “racist party”.
|||ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa launched a full-scale attack on the DA on Saturday, branding them a “racist party” and congratulating other party members who, he said, kept the DA “running in the past weeks”.
At the ANC Western Cape provincial council meeting in Salt River he urged his audiendce to “keep them running… expose the sleaze”. He said the DA had “tried to steal the ANC’s identity” during last year’s local government elections.
“They almost said (Nelson) Mandela was their president,” Phosa charged.
In a personal swipe at DA leader Helen Zille, he said he had had to remind her “that (when) she was a journalist at the Rand Daily Mail and black journalists were sitting on the pavement eating, and she didn’t raise her voice”.
“But today she’s this non-racist leader. I don’t believe that. I say that the DA is the National Party in new clothes.”
On the provincial ANC’s financial woes, Phosa admitted they were battling.
“There was a provincial task team, and we ran it from our national office. I know how difficult it was. I know how much the committee had been working hard. Now you have a situation where they go in and take your furniture, and they do all sorts of things.”
He told delegates he met provincial treasurer Fezile Calana, and that they had resolved the problems.
“He (Calana) will explain how we’ll solve those problems. I’ve said when a comrade or a province is in trouble you don’t walk away. There’s no debt in the ANC that belongs to an individual, all debts belongs to the ANC,” Phosa said.
On the issue of crime, he urged police to get their house in order.
“We don’t want to start asking the question who is policing the police. Instead we must say why do you behave like this? They must get their house in order and attack crime at its roots. And if there’s crime in the police they must clean it up quickly, in the national interest.”
Phosa also acknowledged that the party had neglected interaction with minorities, and needed to become more inclusive.
The ANC stood accused of having lost the “Mandela agenda”, losing ties with “the masses”, said Phosa.
“There are fires all over our townships. Fires, protests, why does it happen and the branches of the ANC don’t know about it? Where are our leaders in the branches?” Phosa asked.
The party had to go back to the basics and strengthen its branches.
In the Western Cape, the ANC could only win back the province from the DA by being an inclusive party, with the values and principles of the ANC at the time it was formed.
Weekend Argus