Zuma Sweetwaters 'shock' - where's he been living?

The Times Editorial:President Jacob Zuma was "shocked" when he visited Sweetwaters informal settlement south of Johannesburg on Monday. The president, on being shown the squalid conditions his citizens live in, said they were not fit for human beings.

That certainly is true. The conditions in most squatter camps are beyond tragic.

But let's not pretend that the president - who is regularly touted as a man wholly representative of the ordinary people - had not known what little change has come to the lives of the poorest of the poor in this country.

Before he was president of this republic, Zuma was deputy president for five years. And he has been both deputy president and president of the ANC, the political party that runs eight of the nine provinces.

So why the shock?

Have the fine G20 tables of Pittsburgh and London last year blinded our president to what things are still like in South Africa, 16 years after apartheid?

Have sitting in the comfort of Sir Herbert Baker's Union Buildings and being protected from the rest of us by the blue-light brigade made Zuma forget about places such as Sweetwaters, Orange Farm, Delft and Balfour?

Or is it that the only ordinary people he continues to see are the privileged residents of Nkandla?

Whatever the reasons for his shock, Zuma must accept responsibility for the ANC councillor's lack of action and delivery in Sweetwaters. His party and his government have repeatedly asked residents of this squatter camp, and of the many others across the country, to trust them and vote for them.

Indeed, it is the president, as head of the ANC and the government, who must stop making excuses and start delivering.