Johannesburg – The dishonest means of accumulating wealth is a challenge many societies including South Africa face through exercising state power, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said.

In a speech prepared for delivery at the University of Oxford on Friday night he said the African National Congress also faced that challenge.

“… An observer cannot miss the point that the exercise of state power throws up its own challenges in all societies. Indeed post-colonial history is choking on such cases, South Africa included.

“This is shown by the huge appetite for the dishonest means of wealth accumulation that has emerged over the twenty years of our exercise of state power.”
Motlanthe said the phenomenon was called “the sins of incumbency”.

“By this I am not suggesting a mechanical view that says we are trapped in a rotten post-apartheid life about which we cannot do anything. Indeed change is possible.”

He said it would take the courage of leadership to come to terms with the malady, in ways that would help the organisation cleanse itself of those conditions.

“It cannot be a matter of wishful thinking, steps have to be taken to bring up a generation of committed cadres with a singular purpose to help move society forward.”
Motlanthe said one of the biggest challenges was the state’s capacity to deliver services to society. Often times government had found itself between a rock and a hard place, he said.

“Government has had to rely on the bureaucratic machinery to implement its programme of social transformation. However, this has not always been easy.

“Democracy is a process. More importantly, democracy is embedded in social conditions, and its thriving presupposes social justice and expanding floor of human comfort.”

Motlanthe said he was confident that South Africans would elevate their experience in a democracy to the level where democratic practice became second nature.-Sapa