ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe told residents of Ekurhuleni on Friday that they should be grateful for social grants they receive from the government.
Furthermore, Mantashe charged that the good heart of the ANC does not end with social grants but extends to free condoms for the youth.
And all these freebies under the ANC-led democratic government are something black people could only dream of during the dark apartheid days.
Mantashe said he was offended by people who go around claiming the “ANC has done nothing” when they benefit in many ways, including through social grants.
According to Mantashe, the social welfare programme of the ANC, which is extended to about 30-million people, was a much-needed intervention to cushion black people from absolute poverty.
Thembinkosi “TK” Nciza, the provincial secretary of the ANC in Gauteng, accompanied Mantashe on a campaign stop in Thembisa.
After being confronted by frustrated residents of the informal settlement who fingered ANC politicians for “eating alone”, Mantashe pleaded with the people to be patient because even Rome was not built in one day.
The ANC has done nothing
“We are not asking for your vote because it is fashionable to do so as everyone is campaigning,” he said.
“We as the ANC are saying that for the past 30 years, we have been doing work; we have been learning because everything we know today we didn’t know in 1994, and everything we are able to do, we could not do in 1994.
“Many people like parroting this notion that ‘the ANC has done nothing’ and I get disturbed by this.
“You go camping and find a mother with six children saying the ANC is doing nothing, all on social grants. I am then forced to explain that the child support grant is their ‘nothing’.
“And then you find a granny who is also receiving an old-age grant every month, also jumping on the ‘ANC has done nothing bandwagon’.
“And again, I have to ask: Is this social grant the ‘nothing’?
“With the Afrikaner apartheid government, these are benefits our people could only dream of. But the ANC government is providing because the ANC cares.”
Distribution of free condoms
So people-centric is the ANC government that it is also dishing out free condoms all over the country for young people.
The condoms were a good contraceptive measure and preventative to STIs for reckless young people who do not want to abstain from sexual intercourse.
Explained Mantashe: “The young, boys and girls, get free condoms from the ANC government.
“And the reason for the distribution of free condoms is to mitigate against unplanned children and encourage family planning.”
He said that the same child from family planning was the same who benefits from child-support grants before going to a no-fee school with a free feeding scheme and then off to varsity to study through NSFAS (National Student Financial Aid Scheme) until they graduate, all these courtesy of a caring ANC government.
