the arena of progressive thought

www.ziwaphi.com

ZIWAPHI • VOL 4 NO 4 • 26 FEBRUARY 11 MARCH 2010

NELSPRUIT

By Tshwarelo eseng Mogakane

On Wednesday afternoon in the Mpumalanga provincial legislature, provincial DA leader Anthony Benadie was the lone voice giving any criticism of premier David Mabuza's State of the Province address, which was delivered with pomp and ceremony at the government complex in Nelspruit on Friday.

With COPE member Prudence Zale Madonsela in hospital after an accident last week, Benadie was the only member of the legislature to debate the speech and not sing its praises, like all the ANC MPLs did.

He told Mabuza to "stop fooling the people".

“Your speech was a pendulum, swinging from the one extreme of unachievable outcomes to the other extreme of providing no direction, target or plan. In fact, never before have I heard someone take so long to say so little.”

Benadie said Mabuza pretended to be building on the legacy of former President Nelson Mandela when evidence pointed to the contrary.

He said Mpumalanga had a nationally infamous “failed education system, a crippled healthcare system, a non-functioning local government system, [and] a provincial administration riddled with corruption”.

“This is a province where those who walk the road of honesty fear the tornado who leads them. This is nothing more than a blatant insult to the character, integrity and the dreams of Nelson Mandela.”

Benadie embarrassed Mabuza further when he accused him of “ignorantly” bragging about the number of social grants beneficiaries, which Mabuza said had gone up by 77% since 2004, representing more than a million people who depend on them.

“While government must support the poor, we should be crying about these statistics rather than parading them as a major achievement. These statistics confirm one fact only: people in Mpumalanga have become poorer under ANC rule,” he said.

Benadie also accused Mabuza of being “totally clueless” about the scourge of crime in the province and ways in which to fight corruption.

He said Mabuza's failure to mention an alleged hit list targeted at whistle-blowers and top government officials was a sign that he cared little about fighting corruption.

Benadie, in turn, was attacked by ANC MPLs, who labelled him a grandson of “apartheid architects”.

“The apartheid government was a government system that was inherently corrupt. It put our people in homelands and robbed them of all sorts of rights. That was corruption at its worst,” said ANC MPL Bonakele Majuba.

Majuba said Benadie would never be taken seriously because he was not helping the ANC in its leadership, but merely opposing everything the ANC does.

Deputy speaker in the legislature Violet Siwela also joined in the fray.

“You accuse the premier of saying too little in the speech; you have a hearing problem. The premier mentioned the building of a university in the province, while your forefathers failed to even build an FET college for our people,” said Siwela.

Legislature chief whip Siphosezwe Masango had to withdraw an insult he had directed at Benadie.

“You people are die Dom Alliansie, you will never rule this province,” said Masango.

Speaker William Lubisi asked him to withdraw the statement.

“I withdraw, kodwa bangizwile (but they heard me),” said a defiant Masango.

Mabuza thanked his ANC comrades for "coming to my defence".

“The DA will always be a minority and no minority can tell the majority what democracy is. Only the majority will tell us through the ballot what they think of our leadership,” said Mabuza.