Durban — The Professionals League, a social interest organisation, has questioned the silence of black middle class and other professionals while the country drowns in debt and gross poor management.
In a statement on Thursday, the organisation said it was making a clarion call to South African professionals to stand up.
The league said what many people would have noticed a couple of weeks ago, if they were not caught up in the rabid tendency to morph into their sycophant identities, was that the uncomfortable truths which are now being reduced to an attack on a sitting president by former presidents, are in fact a confirmation that the ANC and its structures are in the main impotent and grossly becoming irrelevant.
It said, to point out the obvious, none of the three former state presidents, over whom people are all now squabbling, chose to speak their truths to power at any of the many ANC branches that were hosting their Branch General Meetings over that weekend, but they went to every other platform to air their displeasure about the ANC and the type of leadership it provides to the country.
The league said that this happened while people were made to believe by the same ANC that its power lay in the branches, “Amandla Asemasebeni” as the saying goes.
It said it had a problem with former president Thabo Mbeki that he thought it was more appropriate to share his truth at some Strategic Dialogue Forum, organised by goodness knows whom, while former presidents Jacob Zuma and president Kgalema Motlanthe opted for self-curated gatherings under the auspices of their respective foundations.
“All this occurs during the peak season of ANC Branch General Meetings across the country, which were extended, in order to accommodate branches that have not convened duly quorate meetings to nominate names for the national executive committee due to be elected at the upcoming ANC conference in December.”
“The issue of ANC branches constantly struggling to quorate is in itself diagnostic of a party that is in unabated decline. Our ability to acknowledge that, from the view of both rank and file, the hope of renewal by the ruling party remains a fuss and illusive,” read the statement.
The league also accused the ANC of approaching Organisational Renewal as some popular parlance that is esoteric to those who are merely trying to elevate and absolve themselves.
Furthermore, it said none of the former presidents, whether consciously or otherwise, thought that an official ANC platform like a BGM would be effective enough to drive the points they all wanted to make, adding that it was by no means suggesting that members of the ANC should not employ diverse platforms to engage in the national discourse.
“We remain consumed as a nation by an ANC that is drowning in an exaggerated estimate of one’s own self-importance, whilst leaving the rest of the nation behind. Where is the mass base character we always get told about?” further read the statement.
It further stated that a fact should be pointed out that branches of the ANC are no longer the nucleus of organisational existence, and had ceased to be the heartbeat of intellectual discussion but were mere breeding grounds for voting cows.
The league further stated that year in and year out, the State of the Nation Address does not provide a blue-print of a concise, integrated and clear direction that we need to take as a nation, but is a collection of random initiatives and projects that are sometimes conflicting.
“There is an evidently clear diagnosis of a party that is in an unabated decline, due to poor leadership and taking along with it our future and that of our children. The South African middle class, as an extensively influential block which occupies strategic positions across diverse sectors, has the responsibility to redirect the nation and set us on a new course and trajectory that has the interests of all South Africans at heart.”
“Professionals must refuse that a party in decline takes itself, our country, economy, our state into the ashes. We must begin to rebuild after the ashes like our neighbours in the north of our border. Clearly, there is a lack of leadership and vision, hence there is no clarity on exactly what needs to be renewed. It is a ruling party consumed by leadership deficiencies, where every member has a claim in leadership positions,” concludes the league statement.
Daily News