ANC seen to be too distant from society: Ramaphosa

ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa says the party should stop "theorising" about its supporters' challenges and actually do something.

He said the ANC should be tuned in to their struggles and bridge the gap between the party and its constituency.

He said the ANC was seen to be too distant from society and was mired in corruption and maladministration.

"When our people say they are poor‚ we must not theorise in the Union Buildings‚ in Tuynhuys and Luthuli House. We must feel the poverty of our people. We must be able to articulate the challenges our people are going through‚" he said.

Ramaphosa was delivering a memorial lecture in honour of Moses Kotane‚ the late general secretary of the SA Communist Party‚ on Saturday in Dawn Park‚ east of Johannesburg.

Ending his speech‚ Ramaphosa said "things must change"‚ much to the delight of ANC members attending the event.

Earlier‚ Ramaphosa insisted that the ANC needed to "once again" be rooted in the masses in order to understand its historical mission.

Using Kotane's famous Cradock Letter to the SACP‚ in which Kotane implored the party in the 1930s to Africanise itself and begin to "speak the language of the masses and know their struggles"‚ Ramaphosa said: "Moses Kotane understood that the revitalisation of our movement had to be rooted in the struggles of our people."

He also made references to the watershed Morogoro conference in the 1960s‚ saying the sentiment of that conference were similar to those expressed by Kotane more than 30 years prior.