Thapelo Lekabe

By Thapelo Lekabe

Senior Digital Journalist


I take part of the blame for where South Africa is today – Sisulu

'We should all take responsibility for the fact that President Zuma is still the president of the country,' says the minister of human settlements.


African National Congress presidential hopeful Lindiwe Sisulu says she takes part of the blame for the challenges of corruption and state capture currently engulfing the country.

“We are in a very difficult period; everybody knows that. I have been part of what has been going on. I take part of the blame of where the country is at and where the ANC is at right now,” Sisulu said on Thursday morning, speaking on The Eusebius McKaiser Show on Talk Radio 702.

“But I am determined that it is possible to change, and I am putting myself out to make that change possible. Not just it’s possible, that it’s a must,” she added.

“We firmly believed that Jacob Zuma would offer us the solution that we needed because he was the last of the NEC of Oliver Tambo,”

Sisulu, who is also the minister of human settlements, said she also took responsibility for supporting President Jacob Zuma at the ANC’s seminal national conference in 2007 in Polokwane.

“We should all take responsibility for the fact that President Zuma is still the president of the country. I don’t know why we would want to segregate it down to individuals. I have taken responsibility, particularly because I was part of the factions that went to Polokwane in 2007,” she said.

Sisulu said she backed Zuma’s campaign bid to succeed former President Thabo Mbeki as the next leader of the governing party, and ultimately the country, because she believed it was “untenable” for Mbeki to seek a third term as ANC president.

“We firmly believed that Jacob Zuma would offer us the solution that we needed because he was the last of the NEC [national executive committee] of Oliver Tambo. He had the necessary background of understanding the ANC, and we thought we would be there to assist to take the country out of the problems that it had.”

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