President Jacb Zuma: SABC Post-State of the Nation Address interview

President Jacob Zuma's Post State of the Nation Address (SoNA) interview on SABC News

Interviewer: Good afternoon and welcome to this special broadcast brought to you by SABC News. Now today we are in conversation with President Jacob Zuma following the State of the National Address that he delivered on Thursday evening. Mr President, welcome and thanks very much for joining us.

President Jacob Zuma: Thank you very much.

Interviewer: I want to start by asking you, if there was a single most important message that you wanted to pass to the nation on Thursday, what was that message?

President Zuma: Well, a very simple message is that South Africa is better today than what it was before 1994 and I think it is important for all South Africans to realise that a lot of work has gone into our freedom and where we have made progress we have made a lot of things to change the quality of life. But at the same time, because of the enormity of the damage that was done to the country, the challenge still remains that we need to do more.

Interviewer: Do you think you managed to convince the nation? In other words, you managed to rally the nation behind you to say yes, there’s a lot still that needs to be done, but a lot more needs to be done. In other words, do you think you managed to get everyone behind you? In other words, did you succeed in that single most important mission?

President Zuma: I think we did succeed to do so, because really, facts speak for themselves. It was not like we are imagining what we are talking about. We are talking about what people know. Twenty years might look like a long time – it’s a short time - those who were there when it started, they are still there I think. They are able to see that yes, progress has been made.

Interviewer: There are those who argue that no-one disagrees with you when you say South Africa is a better place to be than it was back in 1994. However, what they were looking for on Thursday was a message bigger than what you perhaps gave them – in other words, a message where you are going to be unambiguous and very clear about where this nation is going beyond this point. In other words, you told them what they knew, but you didn’t inspire them enough and channel their energies in a recognisable direction.

President Zuma: Well that’s always a problem that people have their own endings to anything, what they want to do, what they think they want to hear, etc. I think the message was very clear. I made it very clear that we were giving a report firstly, of the twenty years, not in greater details but also a report about the past five years, given the fact that in 2009 we said these were the things we’re going to do and we indicated what we have done. That was the main purpose of the SoNA on Thursday. We’re not saying how we are going to go forward.

Interviewer: In other words it was a deliberate omission, is that what you’re saying?

President Zuma: Not a deliberate omission. We were giving a report, not omitting anything. We’re giving a report of what we have done – firstly, what the democratic government has done since twenty years, what we have done in the last five years as this fourth administration came in. We had to give a report and if we did not give a report, they would have been saying but where is the report? What has he done? He made promises. Now this was very clear, deliberate, not omitting anything, precisely for people who would have said ‘he didn’t say much and made it easier’.

I reminded people in the SoNA that this by the way, is a report, we’re not presenting what we’re going to do in the coming administration. That is still coming. I actually specifically helped people to understand because I did not want to leave any ambiguity. This was a report which was necessary to be given. We are finishing a term. We are finishing twenty years – it’s absolutely important to give a report. That presentation is coming. I think this is really putting the cart before the horse.

Interviewer: Okay. Now Mr President, I want then to now ask you about specific things, starting with the immediate reaction of the opposition once you were done with your speech. They’re saying you painted a rosy picture of the country, of the past twenty years. In other words, much as they agree with you that a lot has been done, but the picture that you specifically painted was actually much rosier than the situation is on the ground and they point to the service-delivery protests to say, if the picture was as rosy as you painted it, then we wouldn’t be seeing the kind of protests that we’re seeing throughout the country today.

President Zuma: Again, what do you expect from the opposition? I would be surprised if the opposition said well, we agree with everything. Even if they would, they would find a way to be an opposition. There’s nothing surprising on that one. I don’t think we painted a rosy picture. We stated the situation as it is. On the service delivery for example, we indicated what we have delivered and what we have and I think when we talked about water we said 95% were delivered water in places that they’ve never seen before. Some of the opposition have never been to the rural areas. They don’t even know. They just talk. We who know it all, we know exactly what we have done. That’s not a rosy picture. It is the facts.

Interviewer: Welcome back and if you’ve just joined us you’re watching a broadcast of a conversation between us and President Jacob Zuma following his State of the Nation Address that he delivered on Thursday evening. Mr President I want to pick up on the point, the first argument you raised around the fact that you’re saying that the reason people are taking to the streets is because they’re seeing success elsewhere and they can’t wait to see what they’re seeing elsewhere coming to them. If that was the case then shouldn’t for example, municipalities be able to go out to communities and say, those of you, because they should have Integrated Development Plans, they should be having timetables where they say this is what’s going to come in the next year, in the next three, in the next five years, in the next twenty years, so your turn is coming.

In other words, be able to take people along with them. They should also be able to demonstrate to the people that what you are seeing currently is all that our money can buy, in other words, the money that we have, can buy. We have to wait a little bit longer, but because people are seeing in certain instances, that actually municipalities or those who need municipalities are not themselves tightening their belts, but are asking communities to do that, so they have a problem because they say, on the one hand you’re asking us to do one thing but we’re seeing you spending lavishly, we’re seeing you engaged in all sorts of conspicuous consumption, so there’s a juncture between what you are doing and what you are asking us to do, which is to be patient.

President Zuma: Well, that in itself is not an easy matter. Firstly, if you take communication – people do communicate. It may be the manner in which people communicate. I’ve heard many people saying look, we are strained by the budget. We don’t have a budget. People may not understand what we are talking about when we talk about the budget. It’s a question of communicating because all that means, we don’t have enough now. It’s coming, but it may be the manner in which people communicate, it may be how often they communicate, how clearly do they communicate? That’s one thing. But again, the issue of the fact that there is poverty and people who are working are earning to be able to look after themselves, again it’s a question of how do we distinguish that because there may be a situation like this – people will say, that people are corrupt, are buying good cars whilst they’re in poverty but where do you draw the line, that people are using their salary to maintain themselves because they’re employed. You are not employed. Of course in addition to that there is an accusation of corruption which we are dealing with.

So I’m just saying, though all of these conditions need to be separated properly and you can do so if you communicate clearly to the people. And I’m saying some might claim that we are communicating but the message might not be very clear as it were, and therefore leave the doubt and the doubt could therefore lead to people saying let us take action. That’s why I’m saying, there’s a variety of reasons why people will go for a protest in a country that is said to have done best out of the countries on the continent in twenty years. In other places we did not see protests and in other places in fact they retrogressed instead of moving forward. But we didn’t see protests.

Of course South Africa has a kind of an arrangement that is very unique. We have a very vibrant democracy and people are very much aware of what they need to do if they favour a particular situation like protests, like talking, like complaining, etc. In other places they don’t do, and that might make South Africa look different from others and that’s why those who are in authority should in fact make it their business to communicate, communicate clearly, where are the difficulties, including saying when is it coming to you, given your plans. What are the priorities? I might feel my situation is very desperate and yet those who are in government, in whatever level, they understand the situation globally, they know what is more priority than what you think is your priority, so all of those things need to be properly communicated.

Interviewer: What if then someone else says Mr President, you may be right but in certain instances it really has nothing to do with communication and cite as an example – I’m sure you’ve seen this morning some of the criticisms of what happened on Thursday especially – that if for example, if the government is faced with the kind of protests we’re seen throughout the country you would have sent a very strong signal, a message to the country. If Parliament had said it was doing away with that dinner on Thursday evening, if Parliament had sent really, really strong messages that we are a government at work, all these frills must be cut completely and not just reducing or capping the hotel rates or allowing fewer people to come instead of big numbers that used to come before, then a strong signal would have been sent there without having to explain or be judged about whether you’ve been successful in explaining or not. In other words, that action would have sent a more powerful signature than any other form of explaining could have done.

President Zuma: Well, again it comes back to the point I made earlier, that it depends from where people are sitting, looking at the situation. You know very well that not a long time ago government has had a lot of expenditure to actually ensure that we are saving so that we can deal with the issues. That we have done. Whoever is criticising must have forgotten that, that this is exactly what we have done. You know, in a society where you have people that you invite to your place to their own thing, because the State of the Nation Address is their own, you want them to be here, you want them to experience it, but you starve them. I’m sure the first criticism will be saying what type of a government is this one?

Interviewer: Isn’t that a better criticism?

President Zuma: No, it’s not! It is in our nature that if we’ve got visitors you must look after them. If you don’t, you are funny. All the [Unclear] must come. You can’t say they must come from all over and do you starve them. Some of them may not have the money to buy dinners and eat. You have invited them. They are here. You have got to look after them. I think it’s a normal thing, really. Whoever was criticising was just trying to find something to criticise because he had yet to find a problem he had to criticise.

Interviewer: Let’s take another issue Mr President, the one you raise of people who have businesses who are then stoking fires in the hope that new administrations will be instituted so that in the hope that they can influence those so that they can look after their businesses. What if then someone says, part of the problem is the fact that the ANC has a lot of people who are funded for its activities in a lot of ways and as a result these are the people who are actually stoking the fires knowing that they are to a degree, large degree it must be said, protected because at the end of the day if they don’t get those businesses they will not be able to, for example, fund the ANC’s activities.

President Zuma: Well, we don’t have evidence of that and I think the business that I’m talking about is like businesses for example of people who have trucks to deliver water. I mean, that’s not a serious business to fund the ANC really. The kind of business and kind of people who would try to disrupt something in order to have a business going, I think, we are not saying huge business people are party to this and I did not make it clear at the beginning – I’m very sorry - I was talking about this small, little business that people do. Not big business who can fund political parties.

Interviewer: A number of them do fund various activities at local government and regional level, at provincial level because they are working in that space. That’s where they made their money.

President Zuma: I wouldn’t know about that one. Unfortunately I wouldn’t know about that one. I think whoever supports the ANC, businesses that I’ve talked to, are businesses that have got money because the ANC, you can’t support the ANC with R20 000. The ANC needs sufficient support. It needs a very substantial kind of support and it has nothing to do with them, the point we are making. No successful business will try to disrupt the workings of government. It will be the kind of people who at a smaller level they will be able to do that kind of thing. And it’s not a usual thing and I want to correct this because it’s not unusual that political parties are funded. It’s not just the ANC only.

Oppositions are funded also by very serious monies as we have seen recently what has happened, discussion taking place somewhere about some arrangement to take place in South Africa. These are serious business people. Those are the kind of people who support political parties and it is done throughout the world. And that’s one of the reasons by the way – we’ve been raising the issue, couldn’t we regularise the question of funding of political parties so that we remove these criticisms that some business are favoured than others, etc. because it will always be there. Some other businesses have got particular beliefs, they’ll fund certain parties. Others will fund other parties. Others will fund the opposition. They want the opposition to come in so that they are the ones who fund the ruling party. It’s a normal thing that is happening. And in some places it is regulated and in some places it is not regulated. So I don’t think we should mix that kind of normal thing that is done in democracies than the problems that we find in South Africa with regard to the protests of people who are doing business at that kind of level at municipal level in particular.

Interviewer: One last point on this particular issue Mr President and that is to what extent are you as government prepared to take responsibility for the protests? In other words, where really, really, the finger is actually pointing at councillors for example or members of the provincial government but also at national level, who are actually not doing their work? And for a minute here I’m going to collapse party and state conveniently and say to what extent does the ANC take responsibility for one, your deployment policy but also how you manage that deployment, whether you are in fact able to ensure that your councillors for example do in fact do their work because in  certain instances, certainly at local government you are not expecting a councillor of that particular ward or area not to know what is happening in their community and to even anticipate such things as public protests that have turned violent.

President Zuma: I think we have been taking action and there are people who are dealt with wherever we come to know that our councillor or Mayor or Minister or whatever, we have taken action. I think whoever could say we are not taking action would be actually misreading the situation. We have been taking action where we have information. We have said to people who make the allegations, bring the information, we will act. What we cannot do, what no government can do, is that if there’s an allegation untested, un-investigated, then take action – you need to provide information to allow government therefore to do the investigation and where this has been done we have acted. It’s absolutely correct.

I would also like to say that I don’t think we should mix the deployment with those kind of people who do government work, because deployment is that. It’s just that in South Africa we call it ‘deployment’ maybe we are more crisp about describing things. In other democracies and only democracies, once the party wins elections it comes with its own people, removes others totally. It’s actually known. Once the party that has been in government, in the United States or whatever, once it wins, those who were there because of the other party, they pack their bags and go. They don’t call it deployment. And it is a mass. Here you can’t say if the party, the ANC wins elections it must then stop taking people that it knows work with it or its members and say sorry, we’re looking for others because we want to be more innocent, it’s never done in democracies. In democracies parties bring people who understand the mandate, the manifesto, who would therefore implement it. I don’t think this should be a crime because it’s a misunderstanding of democracy, of people who are saying is because of the deployment. Deployments are done massively in other democracies, particularly old democracies.

Interviewer: Now Mr President I want to talk about an issue – you did spend a considerable amount of time talking about corruption and what government is doing. And one of the solutions you say, so far as the State is concerned is that you’re going to centralise the tender system. Now the people argue that even municipalities, provincial governments have tried to do the same thing but that never stopped corruption.

President Zuma: Well, as I say again, people look at it from different angles.
Interviewer: The argument that is being made is that people find ways of infiltrating the whole system. In fact there are people who are arguing that the centralisation of the tender system is going to achieve the opposite because now you’re going to have fewer people to deal with in the system and once you’ve penetrated them and have a hold on them then the tenders are yours. Well as I say, people could look at it in different angles.

The problem that we thought was very difficult to handle, if you spread the tender systems throughout three levels of government and many things, we have got too many fingers everywhere. It’s difficult to control that and deal with that. If we take the same argument, if they infiltrate sufficiently, if they infiltrate every other thing you are in trouble. In other words, you give authority to many people. If that authority is corrupted you have got corruption many, many other times. Centralising it, at least you are in a better position to control it to focus and to know that you are dealing with one area that you can deal with effectively, create your own system to be able to prevent infiltration, to be able to detect infiltration, to be able to limit the number.

If you allow it all over it means you’ll never even begin to be able to harness it and monitor – that is what came to us that we have got to have the system which is going to be monitored very closely. It’s better than trying to monitor everything everywhere. That’s what we’re trying to do. You know, the manner in which it has been done, it has created a situation that the thinking is, everything in this country is corrupt because it is everywhere. At least if you know there’s one tender board you know the corruption is there. You can point a finger. And it is not going to taint many people. As we talk today almost people believe something which is not true. They think every other councillor is corrupt. Every other government person is corrupt. Why? Because these tenders are everywhere. At least we’ll save people who are not corrupt. If they say there is corruption they will say people in the tender system are corrupt. You narrow it. You create a situation where the impression is not going to be left that this country is just full of corrupt people. You are going to say at least, people in that particular corner are corrupt and deal with it.

I think it is absolutely important for us to create a keen impression that many people who are not corrupt are understood to be corrupt because anyone who was in government, corrupt, because that’s where decisions are taken. We limit that. You can say the tender board is corrupt. At least it’s not the country.

Interviewer: But speaking of impressions in corruption Mr President, how much of an impression that you are saying is out there that everyone is corrupt? Is it in fact due to the government not being able to dispel even the possibility of doubt that it is dealing with corruption. Let me tell you why I’m asking this. If there are people going around the country and saying do this because, let’s use that term, Number One wants it. Give us this thing because we are doing something for Number One. In other words, people will go around, invoke your name or do things in your name but the person who suffers in the end is you – it is your credibility that is at stake because of people going around saying you are asking them to do things.

President Zuma: Well I don’t know what to do with that kind of thing because you can’t control people, wherever they are. You know, some people who don’t know a name, use your name. I was saying to some people, fortunately when I was in the province as an MEC in 1994, President Mandela was the President. We don’t know how much his name was used by people – Madiba says this, Number One says this, Mandela says this – Mandela left. Thabo Mbeki came in – you don’t know how much his name was abused. When it came to me, fortunately I was aware of it because we talked about it then at Mandela’s time as well as Mbeki’s time. People are not going to stop. Imagine if then the tenders are everywhere, people are taking decision everywhere – so easy to mess up peoples’ names who know nothing about it, as it has been happening. Once you’re restricted to centralising no-one is going to be saying Number One because those people don’t take decisions. So you’ll even limit that kind of possibility of people abusing other people’s names. They don’t just abuse presidents by the way. Ministers’ names, mayors’ names, everybody –it’s just that the President, that becomes almost a powerful one if a person says President so and so says this and someone says what, I must do it because it is said. I don’t even know why they don’t come and ask, did you say this so that we can clarify the issues?

Interviewer: Mr President let’s take a practical example and something right now that goes to the core of the nature of conversations everywhere in the country today – something that’s hanging like an albatross around your neck. There are people who were arguing on Thursday and the next day that for example, as much as you gave us the statistics, what is being done around corruption, how many people have been expelled, suspended, how many are still facing all sorts of legal and other actions and so on, but they’re saying this rings hollow because they believe you haven’t come out clean on the renovations to your homestead for example.

Now I’m saying, what if you had – the day you heard that there was something wrong with what is going on with regard to the renovations at your homestead Nkandla – you then called everyone who was involved and said ‘none of you are going to involve my name in vain. I want to know who did what’. In other words even before the sort of state security departments investigate and so on, ‘I know who said what to me, I want to know who did what in my name among you’ and if there were culprits that you could find on the spot there and then, then you dealt decisively with them, on the spot so that no-one even thinks ever again of involving your name.

President Zuma: Well, you are asking a question that is very interesting, because you are saying the President must stop his work and start investigating. If there’s a rumour I must call everybody else, who said what? There are so many rumours that have been said in this country, and allegations. There are structures that are meant to deal with those specific things. It’s not the task of the President while there is a rumour, whether against him or against anyone, to then stop everything he’s doing and say come, come, come, what is this? People are going to say I don’t know and what do you do? That’s why you have structures that deal with these matters but it also goes to how the matters are raised. If somebody comes up with an allegation, this President is corrupt, he has eaten R250 million and is written by your colleagues in the newspapers, should I call them? Because those are the people who must tell me where did they get this information. Will that be an exercise you can undertake? Because once that happens, they say here is an allegation, what is this, that’s the first thing you do as a government, then government begins to investigate when the allegation is there and this is what has been done. Insofar as the government is concerned the relevant people who have the expertise to do so will actually do so. Not the political action –that I can tell you will produce nothing, because I could call everyone – they’ll say no, we’ve just read the newspaper.

We read the Mail & Guardian or Sunday Times or City Press and then where do you go? Because that’s where the rumours come of people – if you ask them they say well, we protect our sources and where to then? So you can’t even start and that’s why the right people must say ‘okay, allegations have been made, let us investigate’. Then the task team is set to investigate. It has investigated. It has made findings. It has made recommendations and it says ‘President never, never did anything with any money – government never built any kind of house’ but of course in this case that we’re referring to something unusual happened.

Another institution investigates on top of the other, which is unusual – I mean, which is absolutely unusual. Even if you wanted to conclude comments on the report that has come you are actually not allowed to do so, because there’s a report that must come out which then will make you to make conclusive kind of comments as to what actually happens. This has been complicated deliberately because if there was an investigation why do you put another investigation there? If you were a complainant, you knew that an investigation was going on, why not wait until the investigation is finished. You also complain on top and you don’t complain to the people who are investigating. This is complicating a matter for some reasons I don’t know. But the point I’m making, you wouldn’t as a President, while there are allegations about government, then you do the investigation yourself, in whatever form. We have got to allow the institutions that are doing it independently. I can tell you, if I did so, they would say he’s covering up. He’s not put fear into everybody. That’s why you allow people to investigate.

Interviewer: Do you think it’s a price to pay though, given that this is the one issue that people are now throwing at you?

President Zuma: No! You must be forgetting – it’s not the first time. I built my homestead and I was accused of having taken the money for the [Unclear] to build it. It’s not the first time. And again you know, one of the interesting things here and I said this to other people, there is so much unfairness in this Nkandla thing, because the pictures which are shown there – 90% of the structures are structures that I’m still paying bonds for, but it is given to the ordinary people, ‘this is what Zuma has built with the R250 million.’ It’s so unfair to me, but because I’m a President I can’t stand up there and box everybody. I must be fine, be patient, wait for the conclusions so that we could deal with the matter. Perhaps there’s a price to pay as a President. You can’t engage, you can’t be a street fighter. You have got to wait that things are done properly, appropriately by the appropriate structures, independent so that they find the facts but there’s a lot of unfairness there.

Some of the structures that are shown do not belong to me. They belong to government. But the impression is given to the people that all of that, this is what Zuma has done. The subject of discussion has very few items. I’m still paying a bond on my homestead but I’m being told it’s a wrong accusation – I used R250 million to build. I’m paying a bond. I’ve been paying a bond for years. Now this is unfair. This is what happens when people take rumours, make allegations without investigating, without finding the truth.

Interviewer: Is there something on this matter that perhaps you still haven’t said that you would have said, but can’t because of the processes that are currently underway, including waiting for the report of the public protector?

President Zuma: Exactly. That’s precisely the point. I wouldn’t be speaking whilst the investigations are going on because that would be interfering with the investigation but you guys have everything to say every day. That’s a problem. That’s the problem of democracy which you must understand because everybody thinks I’ve got a scoop, I’ve got another scoop whilst investigations are going on. We are restricted by the rules. You guys are not. You can speak any time, any minute, say anything, exaggerate, whatever but because we’re in government, because we hold certain responsibilities we have to keep within the discipline – discipline that is very necessary for the society to be orderly. If we went your way there would be no order, because we would be every day saying things.

Interviewer: Our conversation is with President Jacob Zuma following the State of the Nation Address that he delivered on Thursday evening. Mr President, I want to quickly put to you some of the questions that some of our viewers put out there. Bheki Zwane from Ulundi says ‘Are you willing to take another five years serving as President of the country and the ANC’?

President Zuma: Well Bheki, it is not necessarily my choice. I’m a member of the African National Congress that decides on its cadres to give tasks. If they say we want you to be the President, we are saying here is a task. I am given a task. I can’t say no. I’ve never said no when the ANC gave me instructions. It is not a matter of me saying I want to be this or that. It is a matter of the ANC taking a decision about me.

Interviewer: Well, another viewer says ‘can you expand more on your government’s achievements on rural development’?

President Zuma: Yes, I think we’ve done quite a lot. Firstly, you must know that when in 2009 I came in I was clear that we had been paying lip service to this matter. I established a department so that it can focus on this matter and I think since then we have seen a lot of developments in the rural areas under this particular department. There is a lot that has been done including changing the skills of the young people, being taken from rural areas, being trained, then sent back to their areas. We might not have reached every other part of the country but that programme continues.

There are many projects throughout the country that have been established to deal with rural development. We have emerged with a programme that begins to say let us increase the number of roads in rural areas. Some main ones being tarred –it’s just that we don’t have all the means to do it at one go so there’s a lot that we’ve done. We are trying to bring development into the rural areas through this department, including developing agriculture – people who are coming into the farming, emerging farmers – it has in fact generated a lot of activities including people like, the thing where we have some cooperatives, some non-governmental activities that have been in a sense been influenced by what is happening, being able to go to government to ask for support and this department is ready to support.

We have seen people being employed throughout who are clearing places and have gone to them, who are getting some allowance, who are therefore saying their lives are changing. So there is something that is happening as a result of this development combining with agriculture. 

Interviewer: Someone says the issue of labour brokers – are you really doing something about it?

President Zuma: That matter has been discussed at great length I think for a few years now. You know that Cosatu feels very strongly about this matter. Initially we were saying this matter needs to be regulated properly so that there’s no exploitation but the labour centre feels very strong. We are moving on this matter trying to find common ground so that we can deal with this matter once and for all. So the matter is receiving very active consideration by government.

Interviewer: So the working class will be holding their thumbs that something better is going to come their way.

President Zuma: Absolutely! Something better. They’ve made a contribution. We know their view. We have discussed the matter. We have said how far do we go – do we phase it out, what is it that we do so whatever will finally come as a product it will be a product of serious consideration having taken into account views coming from all, particularly from the workers who feel the impact of it more than anybody else.

Interviewer: Now Khotso James Mr President, seems to be having problems with the Stats SA figures which you also quote. He says how accurate are they and how did they come about?

President Zuma: Well I don’t know whether I could say how accurate are they – I mean, StatsSA is what we do to get statistics. And we can’t say they’re not correct unless we’ve got an alternative kind of expertise to bring the more correct one. As long as StatsSA comes out with the stats and they’ve been able to defend it, we use those as the standard statistics we could apply.

Interviewer: Another viewer Mr President says, ‘for how long must we wait for the return of our land? People died for this land – 20 years of democracy is meaningless without land.

President Zuma: Well there has been some land that has come back and I think again in the State of the National Address we gave statistics of what has happened. Certainly we have said as government, the kind of measures we have taken, they have not been sufficient to address this very critical issue. We are therefore working on what else do we do. We are looking at the legislation, even reopening the claims of land – this is what we have done in this administration and as to how long it will take it’s difficult to say. Bear in mind, it took centuries, the land being taken away, including legislation that was passed by Parliament in the past to take the land. So we’ll have to come also in a particular way – what we cannot do is to employ the methods that are outside of the framework of the constitution and the law. We’ll do everything within the law. But it is also important by the way, in a democratic society that people who are feeling the impact must keep on making the point so that they influence those who are public representatives to take decisions. So it is not a matter where we should keep quiet. Where we feel it, and I can tell you, I come from rural areas, I feel it. But I can’t say because I feel it now, I must follow and stand up and do something. I must find a way to say within the system, how do we deal with this issue? If there is a law that we think we need to do this, let us come up with it so that we can say we are dealing with this issue once and for all.

Interviewer: Mr President lastly and very, very briefly, and I’m going to take you out of the State for a second – Cosatu is in turmoil. There are serious threats – it doesn’t look like a situation that’s going to change. How do you feel about that, particularly about some people’s view that part of the problem is in fact a divide-and-rule tactic if you like, employed by the ANC in trying to get Cosatu running behind it at all costs.

President Zuma: Well, what is happening in Cosatu, firstly I think it’s not the first time. Labour movements historically have always had difficulties from time to time as the development of society moved forward. It’s not the first time. I don’t think people should say what is happening in Cosatu, it’s for the first time because the ANC is in government or the ANC wants to manipulate it. Not at all! Not at all! Labour movements, even political parties, at times the views differ and they split or whatever. Even if you take Cosatu, leading to the formation of Cosatu there were a lot of debates that are beginning to find their way by the way, back, because some people are still there who had those views. Some people for example were thinking we need to form a new party. They were even saying the South African Communist party is not revolutionary enough, we need the workers. Those things are not news.

Interviewer: Does it worry you?

President Zuma: It will always worry me but it’s a natural development in any life of an organisation. What is important is that Cosatu leaders are dealing with the matter as they would have dealt with it historically. They will deal with it. They will come to a particular conclusion. It must worry us because the unity of the labour, not fighting among itself, is very important for the development of the country, particularly if you take the alliance. We don’t want problems in the alliance. We want the alliance that is united so we are hoping that the interaction that is taking place will help all the labour to come to conclusions that will be making us to move forward.

Interviewer: Yes or no – do you think that split is going to happen? It’s inevitable, as many people seem to be thinking?

President Zuma: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. It may not be a split. It may even be some people who are coming out. What has happened with the ANC.

Interviewer: Cosatu will remain.

President Zuma: Cosatu will always remain.

Interviewer: Mr President, thank you very much.

President Zuma: Thank you very much.

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