jacob zuma


R400m to upgrade official residences

Thursday, October 20, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Renovations to the presidential homes and offices, as well as to the Bryntirion estate in Pretoria where ministers live, will cost more than R400m.

A brand-new dressing room and sauna are part of the interior renovations to Mahlamba Ndlopfu, the president’s official residence in Pretoria, of which the total estimated cost is about R169m.

These details are contained in a written reply by Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlanga-Nkabinde to parliamentary questions asked by Athol Trollip, the DA’s parliamentary leader.

Trollip has highlighted the huge expenses at a time when millions of people are unemployed and there is poor service delivery countrywide.

“The state can build 7 000 houses with these millions,” said Trollip.

He says President Jacob Zuma has a poor understanding of the hardships suffered by citizens and little respect for frugality.

“He will live in these houses and has to be accountable for the huge expenses.”

Details of the renovations are:
- Genadendal, Zuma’s official Cape Town residence: R13.5m has already been spent over the past three financial years
- Tuynhuys, Zuma’s offices at Parliament: R24.4m has been spent over the past three financial years and another R780 000 has been spent on office furniture
- Bryntirion estate in Pretoria: The estimated expense is R193m, of which R55m is for a new road to the estate, R42m for a new fence
- Mahlamba Ndlopfu, Zuma’s official residence in Pretoria: an estimated R169m. Maintenance has to be done to the security system, which includes improving escape routes and the installation of an electronic surveillance system

Apart from renovations to wooden frames, balconies, steps, fireplaces and chandeliers at this residence, a new dressing room, sauna and steam room are also being built.

New baths and toilets are being supplied and the house will be fitted with extensive energy saving devices, among them solar water heaters.

In response to Trollip’s question on whether the listed expenses were justified, Mahlangu-Nkabinde said the “market determined construction costs” and that the contracts were awarded after a tender procedure.

Presidency spokesperson Zanele Mngadi said none of the work had been ordered by Zuma.

“No, the president never gets involved in renovations,” The Star quoted her as saying.

“The department of public works is responsible for managing government property, and procurement is done in terms of its procurement policy.”

Credit to: Die Burger

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Fearless Kader Asmal hailed

Thursday, June 23, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Kader Asmal was a fearless fighter for freedom and human rights and his death has weakened South Africa’s democracy, political parties and civil organisations said on Wednesday after the ANC veteran’s death in Cape Town.

President Jacob Zuma said Asmal made a “sterling” contribution to the struggle for liberation and sacrificed a lot in his life to ensure the attainment of freedom and democracy.

“He will be remembered for his energy, forthrightness, efficiency and commitment to making this country a better place each day. He will also always be remembered for his passion for human rights for all.”

Asmal, 76, died on Wednesday in Constantiaberg hospital in Cape Town. He was the minister of water affairs and forestry from 1994, a member of the ANC’s national executive committee, and education minister from 1999.

Publicly rebuked

Asmal, although an ANC stalwart, never hesitated to criticise when he believed government was wrong.

He was occasionally publicly rebuked by the ANC after raising concerns about party stances he feared threatened democracy.

ID leader and Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille said Asmal had fought for democracy up until the last week of his life.

“Up until the last week of his life, he had been fighting for the rights of South Africans.”

Just  last week he voiced his strong opposition to the protection of information bill, urging all South Africans to reject the bill and warned the ANC that rushing it through parliament would destroy trust in the democratic process.

He said he had hoped the weight of public opposition to the so-called “secrecy bill” would by now have persuaded the relevant ministers and MPs “to take this appalling measure back to the drawing board”.

“Since this has not happened, my conscience will not let my silence be misunderstood. I ask all South Africans to join me in rejecting this measure in its entirety,” he said.

Worse than a farce

In 2009, Asmal described then deputy police minister Fikile Mbalula’s idea of militarising the police service as “craziness” and smacking of “low-level political decision-making”.

“The new administration is referring to the militarisation of the police,” he told the Cape Town Press Club.

“I have this former head of the youth league [Mbalula] who aspires to be secretary general of the ANC. Ha, really, I hope I won’t be alive.

“He said we must militarise the police. We spent days and days in 1991 to get away from the idea of a militarised police force. Extraordinary.

“This is a kind of craziness all of us have to take into account. It is part of that low-level political decision-making without reference to the Cabinet,” he said.

ANCYL leader Julius Malema, “tenderpreneurs”, and the National Youth Development Agency have also been the target of his criticism, with the NYDA being described as worse than a farce.

Intellectual giant

His criticism of government, however, did not deter the ANC from declaring him one of the party’s foremost intellectual giants upon news of his passing.

Spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said Asmal’s “immeasurable contribution in the liberation of South Africa” ensured that the ANC earned respect from the international community.

Tributes have also poured in from all elements of the political sphere, including opposition parties.

DA leader Helen Zille said Asmal represented the best of a generation of struggle heroes.
“Asmal was far more than a politician. He represented the best of a generation of struggle heroes who made unimaginable sacrifices to realise a democratic South Africa.”

Architect of democracy

Former president Thabo Mbeki called Asmal an outstanding fighter for the liberation of South Africa and one of the architects of democracy.

“All of us who knew and worked with him…could always depend on him as a steadfast fighter for the liberation and advancement of the interests of all South Africans,” he said.

IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi described Asmal’s death as weakening democracy in South Africa.

“With his death the Republic has lost one of the most vigilant custodians of our freedom and constitutional order, who never feared to speak up on matters of principle,” he said.

“One of the greatest independent thinking and outspoken minds has left us.”

Robust debates

The SA Communist Party said Asmal loved robust debates and was always in search of new ideas.

“Although we did not always agree with his ideas as the SACP, we respected his intellectual contribution in the task of reconstructing and developing our country,” spokesperson Malesela Maleka said.

Cope co-founder Mbhazima Shilowa was shocked and saddened by Asmal’s death and described him as an icon and a legend.

“Asmal was one of the very few icons and legends who still upheld the founding values and principles of the democratic movement and the liberation struggle.”

Good company

Archbishop Desmond Tutu paid tribute to how Asmal selflessly served the country.

“He served his people and his nation, without a thought of self-enrichment or aggrandisement,” he said.

“He added substance and vigour to whatever he did, from the international anti-apartheid movement, to the negotiations that gave birth to our democratic nation, and later, our Constitution; and from the cabinets in which he served under presidents Mandela and Mbeki, to the generations of academics and students he inspired, from Trinity College in Ireland to the University of the Western Cape.”

Tutu sent his condolences to Asmal’s family saying “if it is any consolation to them in this time of grief, one of the first people Kader will bump into in heaven is Albertina Sisulu. He is in good company”.

Credit to: News 24

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ANC to make radical municipal changes

Monday, May 23, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The ANC, in a desperate bid to arrest the decline in its support, plans to make radical changes in the municipalities.

In the coming weeks, the ruling party will introduce measures that will make mayors, municipal managers and other senior officials more accountable, as members of parliament and of provincial legislatures are.

The decision comes in the wake of last week’s local government elections in which the ANC’s support declined from about 66% in the 2006 elections, to about 62%.

Its rival, the DA, has enjoyed an increase in its support, from about 16% in 2006 to about 24% last week.

The municipal reforms are part of the ruling party’s municipal turnaround strategy. Party spokesman Jackson Mthembu said they would be implemented “as soon as possible”, in an effort to deliver services “faster and more efficiently”.

The move, said Mthembu, would help the ANC arrest the gradual erosion of its support by opposition parties.

The municipal turnaround strategy was conceived in 2009 by Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka in an attempt to revive failing municipalities.

“Our showing in the recent polls has spurred us into action. But we had already started working on the turnaround strategy.

“Even before the elections, we had started showing concerns about the performance of some councils. We didn’t bury our heads in the sand when our people were not satisfied with services. When people vote you into office, you owe it to them to deliver faster and more efficiently.

“We want to implement [the measures] as soon as possible so that people will realise that their vote is not misplaced,” Mthembu said.

The mechanisms being considered include:
•    Introducing municipal bodies to which mayors and their executives, including the mayoral committee, will have to account;
•    Forcing municipalities to be monitored and evaluated, as are all national and provincial government departments, by Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane;
•    Monitoring councillors at a political level, by making them accountable to party branches, which, will in turn account to subregions. Subregions will account to regions, and the regions their province and;
•    Asking the national Treasury to reallocate unspent municipal budgets.

The ANC, Mthembu said, could not return money to the Treasury while people lacked services.

“Mayors have both legislative and executive powers – and these need to be separated.

“Some sections of a council must look into the main work of the mayor and the executive.

The council must be able to sit on its own without the mayor and the executive,” Mthembu said.

He said the ANC’s national executive committee will this weekend discuss the outcome of the elections, and evaluate the party’s performance and the way forward.

“We plan to implement these [reforms] as soon as possible. You will need a legal framework to implement some of them,” he said.

Independent political analyst Daniel Silk said that all councillors, particularly those from the ANC, will be under “tremendous pressure” to deliver.

“South Africans will be more vigilant and more aggressive in demanding services. The ANC will have to be more responsive to the needs of the people.

“The defining feature of the next five years will be that South Africans will become more vocal in their criticism of the ANC, even those who voted for it.

“ANC councillors are in for a rough, tough time – otherwise they will see an increased erosion of their support.”

Silk said the monitoring and evaluation of performance at municipal level would mean nothing if the administration failed to appoint skilled and talented people.

“It’s all about finding the right skills. Chabane has been there but we haven’t seen much from him.”

ANC president Jacob Zuma, whose authority will be tested next year when his party holds its elective conference, has promised to act against public officials who fail to deliver.

His tenure will largely depend on the ANC halting the slide in its support, and winning back support in the tripartite alliance, especially that of unions federation Cosatu.

Mayors are to be named this week and Zuma will have to explain to the party’s Women’s League why women have been overlooked for top posts in metro councils.

Credit to: Times Live

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Bumpy road ahead for Zuma as ANC loses support

Friday, May 20, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Jacob Zuma’s leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) was in the spotlight yesterday as his party lost support in major centres while the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) support surged.

By 10pm last night, the DA was enjoying 24,1% support countrywide, up from 15% in the previous municipal poll. Its performance in several black townships across the country suggests it is being accepted by black voters.

The DA’s support base is now about one in four South Africans, which — given that only 9,2% of South Africans are white — will go a long way in backing its claim it is being accepted by black voters.

The DA’s growth, largely at the expense of the ANC, may make Zuma’s chances of re-election as the president of the ANC difficult. The party will hold leadership elections next year.

These elections indicate that SA may be moving towards a two- party dominant system.

The National Freedom Party (NFP), launched three months ago, made inroads in Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) strongholds in KwaZulu-Natal. By last night, the NFP had gained two municipalities from the IFP, from which it broke away.

The Congress of the People (COPE) had captured 2,2% of the vote . But the African Christian Democratic Party had won only 20 seats based on the votes counted. Independent councillors won 83 seats across SA.

The ANC seemed to be suffering from a punishment vote, with its traditional black supporters voting against it.

The party’s policy head, Jeff Radebe, conceded last night that the DA was the growth party in these elections. He said the ANC needed to “go back to the drawing board to see what is happening”.

“One of the issues is that some people changed the candidates chosen by the communities,” Radebe said.

He said, however, that the DA’s growth should not be exaggerated because the ANC had retained its metros. “There have been challenges and the ANC will attend to those challenges.”

The DA increased the number of councils it controls with a clear majority, from six before the elections to 17.

The Cape metro vote was still outstanding at 10pm last night.

The number of municipalities the DA would govern is expected to increase as the party is expected to form coalitions in areas where there was no outright winner, and in hung municipalities.

It has made inroads in ANC- controlled townships. While the votes it received were insufficient to change control, they were an indication of a significant shift. The party got votes in Soweto’s middle-class Pimville and Protea South areas.

In an upset, the DA also won ward 32 in Johannesburg from the ANC. Ward 32 includes Buccleuch and part of Alexandra — an ANC stronghold, and once home to Arts and Culture Minister Paul Mashatile and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe .

In the Eastern Cape, the DA increased its number of councillors in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, where the ANC scraped through with 51% of the vote.

The ANC has 61 seats out of 120 in the metro. That means that if only one ANC councillor is absent from a council meeting, the party will not be able to pass bylaws without opposition support.

In Port Elizabeth’s Walmer township, the DA also registered an increased number of votes.

In the Transkei, the DA won wards in Mthatha, Port St Johns and Lusikisiki. Most significantly, it won a ward in Nguza Hill (Flagstaff), the rural town controversially put on the map by Co- operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka when he diverted its only tarred road to the house he is building for his mother.

In East London the DA took two wards from the ANC — including Gompo Town (Duncan Village) and Southernwood, both of which have few white voters.

Political analyst Mcebisi Ndletyana said the DA was seen as a white-dominated party, and its performance at the polls this week could possibly “shake that monkey out of its bag”.

The official opposition increased its grip on the Western Cape by winning 13 municipalities outright. By using its record in the handful of municipalities and single metro it controlled before the poll, the DA succeeded in making service delivery — and not race — the central theme of its election campaign.

A key result for the DA was its retention of control of the Midvaal council in Gauteng, with an increased majority — after the ANC threw everything into winning the municipality back.

It was expected the DA’s majority in Cape Town would be reduced, but DA insiders were confident the party would win the metro outright. The alliance between the DA and the Independent Democrats (ID) also appeared to have worked, with the DA retaining its areas and ID strongholds. Clearly the DA and ID marriage, with Patricia de Lille as the mayoral candidate, attracted large parts of the coloured vote.

Many of these voters would have been mindful of the declaration by then labour director-general Jimmy Manyi (now chief government spokesman) that there was an overconcentration of coloureds in the Western Cape and the subsequent accusation by ANC heavyweight Trevor Manuel that Manyi was a racist in the mould of Hendrik Verwoerd.

The DA also wrested several municipalities in the province from the ANC: Breede River, Saldanha Bay, Knysna and George — which would not have been possible without support from all races. James Selfe, chairman of the DA’s federal executive, said a significant number of wards had been won from the ANC across SA, and this could not have been achieved without black support, which had more than trebled since the previous election.

Facing defeat in the Cape Town ANC mayoral race, ANC candidate Tony Ehrenreich last night said he believed the ANC’s score would grow as counting continued on the Cape Flats, but conceded the party had failed to win coloured voters away from the DA.

“I don’t think we were going to be able to turn around traditional support to other parties so quickly,” he said, adding that people were still voting according to “apartheid faultlines” in the province.

“Coloured areas voted for the DA.

“So that should tell you that the people feel scared and more secure with people who had traditionally given coloureds a better deal.”

He conceded government spokesman Jimmy Manyi’s controversial comments that there was “an oversupply of coloureds” in the Western Cape, may have harmed the ANC’s chances.

Ehrenreich said he did not regret refusing to run a campaign that targeted specific race groups.

“I’m not going to be pandering to that type of racial division.”

Credit to: Business Day and Sapa

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Zuma and Zille battle it out on Twitter

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

On Monday DA leader Helen Zille boasted about the advantage she has over ANC president Jacob Zuma when it comes to their Twitter followers.

President Jacob Zuma has joined the world of social media and already has thousands of followers on his Twitter account, @SAPresident, but supporters are allegedly unhappy because Zuma does not respond to the tweets from his followers.

Zuma currently has 16329 followers on Twitter.

In a tweet on Sunday, Zuma called on all his followers to join him at the FNB stadium for the final ANC election rally. Almost 100 000 people attended the rally.

DA leader Helen Zille, @helenzille, who has been tweeting regularly since February 10 last year, has 32661 followers on Twitter and claims that she personally responds to tweets.

Social media such as Twitter and Facebook have played key political roles in other countries, especially the US. President Barak Obama used Facebook to win his presidency.

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the use of social media formed part of the ANC’s election strategy.

Credit to: Times Live

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Mulder lay charges against Zuma for ancestor utterance

Monday, May 16, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The Freedom Front Plus is to lay a charge at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) against President Jacob Zuma about comments he made to voters in the Vrischgewagt township near Delareyville, the City Press reported on Friday.

But the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Saturday said it was not aware of a complaint levelled against ANC President Jacob Zuma by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).

According to media reports, Zuma said people who turned their backs on the ANC would have to face bad luck and explain themselves to their ancestors when they died, Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) leader Pieter Mulder said. This was a clear breach of the IEC’s code of conduct, he said.

“Zuma’s actions is firstly intimidating in nature in that he fills voters with fear about the consequences of a vote for any other party than for the ANC, and secondly he abuses his position of traditional authority to influence voters to vote for the ANC,” Mulder said.

The Electoral Code of Conduct banned intimidating behaviour and any action where authority was abused to influence voters to vote in a certain way.

“This complaint against Zuma is being brought against the backdrop of various comments by Zuma and senior ANC members who regularly bombard voters with religious messages and comparisons with the Christian Trinity Godhead.

This behaviour is for the majority of Christians, including the FF Plus, offensive and could be seen as blasphemous. It is indicative of the ANC’s desperateness to gain votes and retain votes in the forthcoming election.”

The ANC’s actions were a consequence of a governing party becoming too strong, the party said. The same would happen if any other party came to power on its own and had to represent all the other different groups and views.

“Coalition politics where more than one party governs together holds the advantage of more checks and balances against the abuse of power,” Mulder said.

Credit to: City Press, Eyewitness News and Sapa

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Samwu down tools in Friday

Monday, May 9, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Members of SA Municipal Workers Unions (Samwu) will embark on a national strike on Friday following a deadlock on wage negotiations among other issues, The New Age newspaper reported on Monday.

Samwu, that has 220 000 members working for municipalities across the country, said its members would strike to force government to meet its demands.

Workers are demanding an 18% wage increase.

They will down tools on Friday, five days before the local government elections.

They are also demanding that President Jacob Zuma not sign into law the Municipal Amendment Bill. The bill is intended to depoliticise municipalities and ensure that they appoint skilled people.

It also demands that Zuma fire Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Siceclo Shiceka and that provincial governments be scrapped.

Credit to: Fin 24

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Mass municipal strike coming

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‘Enough to act against Shiceka’- Zuma

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

President Jacob Zuma says there are enough reasons to take action against Cooperative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka following reported allegations of the misuse of taxpayers’ money, The Star reported on Tuesday.

“There will be no hesitation if these things that are being said are true. Absolutely no hesitation. I said so before. There are enough reasons for action to be taken,” he was reported as saying.

The report continued with him saying: “Here there is going to be action… and we are not going to take long even to investigate (Shiceka) because these are too serious allegations made against the minister.”

The Sunday Times reported that Shiceka allegedly spent R355 000 on a visit to a girlfriend serving time in a Swiss jail for drugs, R640 000 over one year to stay in a luxury hotel in Cape Town and more than R160 000 to fly family around the country over eight months.

Municipal trucks were also allegedly being used to ferry water to a house he is building in Ingquza Hill, in the Eastern Cape, and a R32m tarred road was being routed past the house while other residents did not have dirt roads to reach their villages.

Parliament’s ethics committee has asked the public protector to probe allegations.

Shiceka has denied wrongdoing and claimed the Sunday Times based the story on fabricated documents. However, he admitted spending over R55 000 for one night at the One & Only.

“What is wrong with that? Every other hotel was full,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

He added that he had not broken the ministerial guidelines on the use of public money by putting up a man he described as “a father figure” in the same hotel.

The CEO of the public protector’s office, Themba Mthethwa, confirmed it had received the ethics committee’s request.

Opposition parties also urged Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to investigate the allegations. The African Christian Democratic Party has said Shiceka should be made to repay the money to the state.

The Institute for Democracy in Africa has said if the allegations were true, President Jacob Zuma would have no choice but to take strong disciplinary action, and possibly lay a fraud charge against the minister.

Shiceka has been on sick leave since February.

Credit to: Times Live, Independent Online and Sapa

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ANC scared of losing control in E.Cape

Monday, April 11, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The African National Congress (ANC) mounted a desperate campaign at the weekend to try to ward off a coup by opposition parties it fears could join forces to wrestle control of crucial Eastern Cape municipalities, including the Nelson Mandela metro in Port Elizabeth.

President Jacob Zuma visited potential voters in Port Elizabeth and Graaff-Reinet, where the party fears losing to the Democratic Alliance (DA) and opposition coalitions.

Losing control of Nelson Mandela metro, a city with a rich history associated with the ANC, would add to Zuma’s woes as he nears the end of his first term. ANC elections will be held in December next year, where a poor showing will reflect badly on Zuma’s leadership.

In both towns, the ANC garnered just half the votes in the 2009 national elections. This has spurred the DA, which believes a lower turnout of ANC voters could sway things in its favour in Port Elizabeth and other Eastern Cape municipalities.

Eastern Cape ANC leaders in Port Elizabeth said Zuma’s visit was necessitated by the threat posed by the DA. Zuma told a rally in Graaff-Reinet on Saturday that the ANC needed hegemony at local government level — and then to regain its two-thirds majority to be able to govern without the “interruption of opposition parties”.

The ANC dropped from the 69% majority it got in the 2004 general election and obtained 65% in 2009, below the two-thirds majority required to change the constitution.

Zuma also told the rally that voting for the opposition was a waste of time, and opposition votes were discarded. “You don’t want your vote to be useless,” he told a cheering crowd.

This startling statement may be seen as a desperate ploy to hang on to voters increasingly unhappy with the pace of ANC delivery.

Camdeboo (Graaff-Reinet) mayor Daantjie Japhta said yesterday that there was a “real threat” coming from the DA’s stated intention to win the municipality and others in the district, “But we will fight till the end,” he said.

The DA has also put up a strong challenge for the municipalities that border Port Elizabeth.

The district covers the western part of the province, from the Western Cape border to Grahamstown, and includes towns in the Little Karoo.

DA leader in the Eastern Cape legislature Bobby Stevenson said yesterday that deposing the ANC in Nelson Mandela metro was possible. This would need a differentiated turnout — where there would be a higher turnout of DA supporters accompanied by a lower turnout among the people who previously voted for the ANC. The DA would also need to persuade traditional ANC voters to vote for it, he said.

The Congress of the People (COPE ), which has been torn apart by a bitter feud between its national leaders, would need to play its part. The DA would need to combine its votes with whatever COPE received in order to be a ruling party.

Like its campaign for the City of Johannesburg, the DA is selling its successes in Cape Town in its Port Elizabeth campaign. Stevenson said the DA could change the administration of Port Elizabeth, which is in dire financial straits. The city has not recovered from its contribution to 2010 Soccer World Cup infrastructure, including the building of a stadium, and maintaining the stadium continues to drain the municipality’s funds.

ANC leaders in Port Elizabeth fear that internal fights among regional leaders will discourage people who voted for the ANC in the past. Competition for councillor posts has created divisions among the party’s members.

Credit to: Business Day

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Citizens entitled to public service- Zuma

Tuesday, April 5, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Public servants are not doing any favours to South Africans as they are providing services citizens are entitled to, President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.

“At times public servants think that they are doing members of the public a favour, when in fact they are providing services that citizens are entitled to,” he said at a Nursing Summit in Sandton.

“The Constitution of the republic states that everyone has the right to have access to health care services… It is their right and not a privilege that can be taken away by government, and public servants or any other institution in society.”

Nurses, historically, were important people in South Africa, they were “exemplary”, said Zuma.

“Even if you were walking in the township and you see a home, just a stoep, you say a nurse lives here. They were clean… Absolutely wonderful.”

Zuma jokingly relayed how young men used to visit hospitals just to see the nurses. Those with cars would drive from afar to visit hospitals in Durban.

“Even tsotsis who pick pocketed never pick pocketed nurses, they allowed them to pass because they were very special.

“This profession has always been put up there, respected. This is a profession we believe needs to be brought back to that status.

“The health of the nation is in your hands,” Zuma said.

He described the summit as a “moment of renewal”.

“The era of the rude, uncaring and impatient civil servant or nurse must be a thing of the past as we build a caring government and a caring society,” he said, ensuring that his warning was heard by his audience by repeating himself.

“Citizens should not be treated as if they are a burden or a nuisance by staff that is employed to serve them.”

Public servants had to change the way they worked to improve service delivery.

“There is something I don’t like in government. The manner in which government does things. They are very slow,” he said.

Many have said this was due to “bureaucracy”.

“We want to change government… We want to do things differently.”

He said people behaved differently when they worked for government and different when they worked for the private sector.

They “even become very pompous”, he said, of those working in government.

Government wanted to change that culture, to “behave differently”.

“We are here today formally to bring that message to the country’s nurses.”

Credit to: Times Live and Sapa

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