Tourism Minister and ANC NEC member Lindiwe Sisulu has described President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reference to ‘nine wasted years’ as a fantasy designed to tarnish the image of those he had taken over from. President Cyril Ramaphosa appears in the National Assembly hybrid plenary sitting to provide oral replies to questions from Members of the House. Photograph : Phando Jikelo/African News Agency (ANA)
Ramaphosa is currently embroiled in a scandal of the theft of millions of dollars from his Phala Phala farm after the Section 89 independent panel found prime facie evidence that the president had violated the Constitution by not reporting the crime and trying to cover it up.
Ramaphosa has taken the report on review.
Sisulu, addressing a press club event on Wednesday, said the impression was that the government that had taken over from former president Jacob Zuma had far greater achievements, but this was not the case. Ramaphosa has, in several speeches, referred to the period from 2008 to 2018 as a lost decade. At Davos at the end of January 2019, he edited the period down to nine years, which coincides with the period when Zuma was in office.
Sisulu said it was characteristic of human beings to try and tarnish the image of people they are trying to take over from in order to put themselves on a pedestal and to say, ‘I have come to clean up’ or ‘I will sort things out’.
Sisulu said the government had ten years of a Thabo Mbeki government, describing him as an Africanist with an expert understanding of what needed to be done in government.
“He put in place aspects of government that needed to be in place. He was followed by Comrade Zuma, and the difference between them is that Zuma has a great deal of humanity in him.
“He brought to the government those aspects that touched people’s lives, and I speak about the area I worked on when I worked with him.
“Today, we have a department called the Military Veterans Department, which would not have existed had Zuma not decided that that would be the way we look after our soldiers.”
She said there were many other things that were done during that particular time ‘,and I don't know in what way those years were wasted’.
“This is something that is always used by politicians, who are trying to climb on other politicians to tarnish the image of those and to make it better for them to stand on a pedestal.”
Sisulu said the years that Zuma served as president were very fruitful years.
“They built on what Mbeki had put in place, and I was there right through.
“The fantasy of nine wasted years is made by those people trying to remove any vestige of what they found, to create an impression that they have done better or will do better.
“There has not been anything that has been done better than what we found. We gradually grew as a government, as a society, based on every step that we took,” said Sisulu.
She described the fantasy that had been created as ‘absolute rubbish’.
“But it was thrown out because it served a particular purpose, and it was thrown out at the Zondo Commission.
“We do have a problem of not acknowledging other people’s work sufficiently.”
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