Hoity-toity+politicians+rapped+over+knuckles,+S+Times+and+Sindy

Sunday Times, Johannesburg. 01 October 2006
=Hoity-toity politicians rapped over knuckles=


 * //ANC secretary-general says the organisation remains a liberation movement//**


 * MOIPONE MALEFANE**

THE VIP treatment meted out to politicians is alienating them from ordinary people, ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe has warned.

Addressing the provincial general council of the ANC in Limpopo yesterday, Motlanthe warned politicians against the trappings of power, saying it made them appear remote.

“This protocol is necessary in government but it can also create a gap with the people because [those in senior positions] do not interact. When ministers finish their speeches at functions, guests are asked to remain seated until the person leaves. That kind of a protocol has a potential to create a social gap with the people.

“We need to always strive to interact dynamically with our people,” he told the council, attended by Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi, deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi and Limpopo Premier Sello Moloto.

Special treatment for ministers includes allowing them to use a special entrance at the airport and to embark only once all other passengers have been seated.

They also have reserved seating on aircraft, Motlanthe pointed out.

The ANC’s alliance partners, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, have also raised questions about leadership alienating the members.

Motlanthe said the ANC decided long ago to remain a national liberation movement and not to become a political party so that it could remain accountable to ordinary citizens and retain their trust.

He said while the ANC tried to ensure that programmes were put in place to improve the lives of ordinary people, sometimes this didn’t translate into government policy. “Those in government are accountable to the ANC and they take direction from the ANC but the party cannot micro manage government.”

Motlanthe said there had been times the ANC had taken policy decisions at government level, but that Cabinet later deviated from what had been agreed on.

Motlanthe also shrugged off the current crises in the organisation, saying “the ANC had always had problems”.

He did not refer specifically to the succession battle.

He also did not refer to President Thabo Mbeki’s decision to release Jacob Zuma from his Cabinet, but said that members needed to understand legal processes.

•Paddy Harper reports that Mbeki and Zuma are set to meet at the ANC’s National Working Committee meeting tomorrow, their first meeting since the corruption case against Zuma was struck off the roll.

The two are also set to meet at a full National Executive Committee meeting on Friday, at which the Jele Commission report into the hoax e-mails — used to boost the argument that there is a political conspiracy against Zuma involving National Prosecuting Authority officials, ANC leaders and members of the media and opposition parties — is set to be tabled. — with Sapa


 * From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=ST6A210316**



Sunday Independent, Johannesburg, October 01, 2006 //Edition 1//
=Motlanthe slams ministers over 'trappings of power'=


 * Moshoeshoe Monare**

Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC secretary-general, said yesterday that the trappings of state power and government protocol alienated ministers and other public officials from the ordinary people.

Speaking at the ANC's provincial general council meeting in Limpopo, Motlanthe said ministers tended to enjoy VIP treatment and did not interact with the people, thereby creating what he termed a "social gap".

He gave an example, with reference to Sydney Mufamadi, the provincial and local government minister, who attended the conference, by saying that while others were delayed in traffic, the minister would use a police escort "to arrive on time for meetings".

Motlanthe also cited the VIP treatment at airports reserved for senior government officials.

"If you are a minister you are taken through a VIP lounge. There in the VIP lounge you will find other VIPs - some are diplomats … they are all engrossed in magazines, [there is] no conversation.

"And you are taken by the staff across the tarmac … once everybody has boarded … you get on board and of course there is a seat in front or the second row reserved for you… When you get to the destination you are the first to alight," Motlanthe said to applause from the delegates.

Amid the applause, however, Mufamadi, Jabu Moleketi, the deputy finance minister, Sello Moloto, the Limpopo premier, and some of his MECs showed discomfort.

Lulu Xingwana, the agriculture and land affairs minister, was once reported to have been embroiled in an altercation with a passenger because her front row seat had not been reserved.

"The challenge that faces the ANC, because these comrades that are deployed in government are ANC comrades, is that in order to bridge that gap we must always try to create the conditions for all of us to interact dynamically and directly with the people," Motlanthe said.

The other factor that alienated people from the government was the state's failure to implement policies despite agreement to do so at party and alliance level.

Motlanthe also told delegates that the ANC had detected that as a result of the organisation becoming the ruling party, politicians were tempted with indirect bribes.

"If we do not get a method of handling such gifts, we will become indebted. The person who leaves these gifts does not have to ask for anything in particular… Normally it does not come in the form of a bribe; nobody can come and say we want to buy you, because they know that you will get very angry."

In a tacit defence of the ANC's deputy president, Jacob Zuma, Motlanthe said that the rule of law and due process should be observed without people introducing "artificial standards".

"Due process means allegations get tested … there are always allegations. When that happens we must allow due process to establish the facts. We put ourselves under pressure to act before the law can take its course. These are artificial standards we introduce," he said, adding that "comrades" should not be embarrassed when one of their own faced allegations.

Some of the ANC's national executive committee members - such as chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota and Pallo Jordan, the arts minister, said the organisation should discuss the negative effect of Zuma's rape case on the party despite his acquittal.

Motlanthe warned that people should not "pronounce" or "intervene" because they thought they were right.

President Thabo Mbeki axed Zuma as the country's deputy president after Zuma was implicated in the Schabir Shaik corruption trial as being in a "generally corrupt relationship" with Shaik, a move that triggered divisions in the ANC.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3465919**

1090 words