Former ANC president Thabo Mbeki has once again decried “corrupt elements” within the governing party who joined it as a shortcut to personal wealth accumulation.
Mbeki said the ANC cannot renew itself with corrupt members within and that his refusal to change his stance in this regard had made him a persona non grata to some ANC leaders.
Mbeki was speaking at the memorial service of ANC stalwart Rita Ndzanga in Soweto on Thursday.
The Thabo Mbeki Foundation patron shared an anecdote about a Johannesburg regional leader who expressed dissatisfaction to Mbeki about his stance on corruption.
According to Mbeki, the leader said he did not like him because he did not allow leaders to “to steal just a little bit”.
“You know, one of our comrades, I will not give his name, but you know him very well, he says to me one day, he has been talking to some of the leadership of the ANC in Johannesburg. And he says, ‘Comrade president, they are not quite happy with you’, and I ask why?” said Mbeki.
“He said, ‘You see, they say you do not know the value of money’, and [the person who was saying so] says ‘I want to take a little bit from public funds, not too much, just a little bit, but what is wrong with[Mbeki] is that he does not even agree with that’.”
Mbeki said such people were at the centre of the ANC image crisis today because society at large believed it was in power to steal.
The problems did not start recently, he charged, but had been there since the ANC rose to political power at the dawn of democracy in 1994.
The ANC democratic takeover, he added, “attracted” all sorts of characters, mainly those with intent to use it to fill up their pockets.
Mbeki emphasised the point: “We need to renew the ANC. If we do not renew the ANC, the ANC will die. People are saying undertake this renewal and become the ANC that we know.
“But how do we renew the ANC when this person who joined the ANC for wrong reasons remains a member? What then has been renewed? Nothing.”
According to Mbeki, ANC ranks had been swollen by “performers” who thrive on leading community protests singing the loudest when they in fact do not believe in ANC values, principles and strategic objectives to deliver a better life for all but are in it for self-enrichment.
“We cannot have a situation where you have people popping up, who are corrupt, and each one of them is ANC. In the end people say the ANC is corrupt and the ANC is not corrupt, but the ANC carries within its ranks people who are corrupt.
“And to renew itself, it must get rid of those kinds of people.”
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