South African President Jacob Zuma on Saturday said that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) needs to get back to its core values and fight corruption in its own ranks.
“We are here to serve the people; the people are not here to serve us,” Zuma said.
He heads the ANC as it moves into its 21st year in power.
Photo: AFP
“Let us rededicate ourselves to the core values of the ANC, which include discipline, selflessness and constructive criticism,” he added during celebrations to mark the movement’s 103rd birthday.
His party has been buffeted by attacks from extremist movements on the left spurred by millions of disillusioned South Africans — left behind in the nation’s post-apartheid era — who accuse their leaders of bad governance.
Zuma said his party needs to do a better job of managing the nation and battling corruption, starting at the local level.
“Every single cadre of our movement must know that his or her responsibility is to make local government function better by getting the basics right,” Zuma said. “The ANC must continue to lead in ending corruption in the state, the private sector and among our own members.”
The scandal-prone Zuma has been accused of spending US$23 million in state cash on a lavish refurbishment of his private residence, though the so-called “Teflon president” — as in, “nothing sticks” — has weathered other storms before.
Zuma, who was sworn in for second term in May last year, also repeated his commitment to accelerate a reform of racist apartheid-era land policies.
A 1913 law gave non-white residents access to just 10 percent of the nation’s farmland, which was subsequently revised upward to 13 percent. The rule put in place a system that still sees a majority of the best land owned by white South Africans.
A law that would redistribute fields more equitably is to be voted on this year, Zuma said, repeating that there will be no appropriation of land without compensation.
Outspoken political leader and former Zuma ally Julius Malema, whose radical movement won more than 6 percent of the vote in elections in May, has continually called for evicting white farmers.
“We must continuously guard against the manipulation of our democratic processes by those among us who wish to use the ANC for personal gain and self-aggrandizement,” Zuma said.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS