Trevor Manuel: Zuma’s Presidency Was A Disaster

South African former Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel has described the presidency of Jacob Zuma as a ‘total disaster’.

Manuel was addressing the gathered audience at the Archbishop Thabo Makgoba Public Lecture at the University of Western Cape on Wednesday night.

“I make no apologies, Archbishop, for my views that the presidency of Jacob Zuma was a total disaster for South Africa,” he said.

Manuel said that it will take years for the nation to recover from Zuma’s presidency.

He further pleaded with South Africans to fight corruption and report any kind of wrongdoing as soon as possible.

“It is for this reason that we must all commit to supporting [President Cyril Ramaphosa] in his endeavours for leadership against the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment. We need to understand the enormity of the challenge if only to root out corruption,” he said.

Manuel also touched on the Thabo Mbeki issue, saying that forcing Thabo Mbeki out as a president led to the change in the ANC and direction of the country.

”The ANC would become a mere shadow of what it once was,” he said.

Manuel said that Zuma’s legacy left us with the biggest challenge – “Hospitals are not functioning properly, school feeding programmes in many districts have been discontinued and we still have children relieving themselves in the veld outside the school because there are no toilets.”

Manuel also spoke about the reshuffles that the former president was fond of – “We have seen incompetent ministers appoint unqualified DGs (Director-Generals) in many departments, happy that competent and dedicated professional public servants had been driven out.”

Manuel served in Zuma’s cabinet until 2014.