South Africa 'not falling apart'

Former president Nelson Mandela (94) has been in frail health for the past few years. He has been in a Pretoria hospital for more than a week for treatment of a lung infection and removal of gallstones.

Mr Zuma called for an end to internal factional fighting and corruption in Mandela's 100-year-old liberation movement, which faces accusations from critics that it has lost its moral compass under the scandal-hit Zuma presidency.

"We mustn't look away when we see a cadre in government is corrupt," Mr Zuma said.

ANC top brass said its system of deploying its members to work as bureaucrats is riddled with problems that cause leakage in funds meant for the poor. The Auditor General reported this year more than 90 per cent of municipalities cannot account for all the money they receive and spend.

"If as a cadre you are not politically clear, you will think government is there to enrich yourself," Mr Zuma said.

Corruption appears to be growing worse under Mr Zuma, according to global monitoring agency Transparency International. Critics say billions of dollars meant for poverty eradication is being lost to graft, and that the Zuma administration is more concerned about patronage networks than effective policies.

Mr Zuma, who has faced corruption charges but has never been convicted, has recently been raked over the coals on allegations his government has spent more than $20 million to rebuild his private rural residential complex.

Party insiders said Mr Ramaphosa's inclusion in the ANC leadership team could help to restore the party's image.

This has been undermined by growing popular disillusionment over the ANC government's failure to tackle still widespread poverty and unemployment and over persistent problems of graft, cronyism and mismanagement.

Mr Zuma called for changing a government contracts system that has been criticised for enriching business executives with ANC links, many of them ANC members themselves, and creating a wealthy elite mockingly called the "tenderpreneurs".

"The system of tenders is turning people we have known into something else," he said.

Mr Ramaphosa, now aged 60, won international renown as a campaigner against apartheid when he led a mineworkers' strike in 1987, and he also helped draft South Africa's post-apartheid constitution before becoming one of the country's most successful and respected businessmen.

He is seen as one of the "cleaner" members of the ANC whose fortunes have come from private-sector business deals and not through government tenders.

Reuters