ANC's Cronyism Rots Society

January 22, 2007
The version of the free market system adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) government had led to "truly bizarre" outcomes in government policy and was to blame for the crony capitalism in SA, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) president Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Friday.

"There is a dangerous disjuncture which has led to multiple contradictions in a government committed to, as President Thabo Mbeki eloquently put it, the 'broad family of ideas that might be called left'. In practice this has led to some truly bizarre policy outcomes," Buthelezi said in a statement.
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An example of this was that while Finance Minister Trevor Manuel had rightly said that people should not become dependent on social grants and should seek work, it was the "crippling rigidity of the labour market legislation" that the government enacted which had made it onerous for work seekers to get jobs, he said.

"This heart and head split in government thinking is again expressed in its reluctance to develop standard antitrust and a pro-competition legislation to break the grip of our public and private cartels and monopolies on our economy."

The consequences of this "free market" were painful, Buthelezi said. Bank charges were among the highest in the world and provided little incentive for poor people to put money into bank accounts. Yet without banking facilities, people could not obtain loans to purchase property or start their own small businesses.

"Many in the ANC have clearly twisted the fundamentals of the free market model to suit the needs of its real constituency -- the lucky elite few in its own ranks at the expense of the unlucky masses," he said.

The South African free market model should be based on "meritocracy, hard work, integrity and genuine individualism".

The ANC had laid the foundations for a well-functioning enterprise economy in 1994. "Thirteen years on, clearly something has gone wrong in this country as crony capitalism and rampant materialism have, hand in hand, rotted our society," Buthelezi said.
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