Former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has been lambasted by the African National Congress (ANC) after he was quoted by a local publication as having referred to the ANC’s period in office since 1994 as “almost three decades that were wasted.”
The former Chair of the South African Planning Commission is said to have made these utterances during a webinar discussion hosted by the Catholic Parliamentary Liason Office and the Hans Siedel Foundation on August 20.
Manuel says, “I will not apologise for the basic premise which is 10 wasted years and we can track that. Ahead of the 10 wasted years and ahead of Polokwane you can see what happened in the economy, there was growth, there was employment creation. The lives of South Africans were improving, but it is not possible to say that and talk about 30 wasted years as though there is no contradiction. ”
The former ANC national executive committee (NEC) member spoke to SAfm in the audio below:
In a statement, released on Monday, the ANC said that while they respect Manuel’s right freedom to speech, “We believe that there is absolutely no basis to portray a doom-laden picture of the country to the media and the outside world. We are painfully aware of an ongoing onslaught against our movement being desperately choreographed on various social media platforms and urge Manuel not to fall into this trap.”
The full ANC statement is below:
