Anglican Archbishop Emeritus rejects President Zuma's 'litany of lame excuses'

02 April 2016 - 00:14 By TMG Digital

Jacob Zuma’s response to the Constitutional Court's ruling on Friday night has prompted Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane to say he had lost confidence in the president's guardianship of South Africa's constitutional democracy."South Africans need to use their power in the exercise of their democratic right and come out in numbers to vote for the right government whose actions will be consistent with the values and aspirations contained in our Constitution‚" the retired cleric said in a hard-hitting statement."South Africans should remember that our democracy was founded on tears‚ blood and sweat."I call on all right-thinking citizens to become ever more vigilant in the protection of our democracy as we are let down by leaders in government with whom we were in the trenches. We need to make our voices loud and clear when we say: 'Not in our name'."President Zuma’s address to the nation‚ delivered on national television‚ "was a wholly inadequate response to yesterday’s Constitutional Court unanimous judgment which found that neither he nor the National Assembly upheld the Constitution of South Africa in the Nkandla debacle"‚ Ndungane said."The litany of excuses trotted out by President Zuma in his address‚ exonerating himself from any responsibility for the debacle‚ and culminating in an apology which could be best described as 'lame'‚ was a deep disappointment to the people of South Africa‚ particularly the poor and marginalised‚ who had been hoping for a courageous acknowledgment of and response to the grave implications of yesterday’s ruling."I am deeply disappointed with both President Zuma and the ANC tonight."The President’s address to the nation was a seminal opportunity to place the country’s interests ahead of his own‚ and he failed dismally to do so."He simply has no comprehension of the damage that his actions‚ and that of the ANC-controlled National Assembly‚ have had on the good name of our country‚ on its economy‚ and on the poor and marginalised."..

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