The African National Congress is reputed for churning out lofty documents which they regrettably do not live up to.

The National Development Plan is one such document.

In this voluminous book the ANC government has raised issues they commit themselves to yet continue to do the opposite.

They are on record that they hope to “assist so that all life’s enablers are available in a humane way” yet they present the opposite of what they undertake to do.

They, among others, state that they will ensure that “we have water”. This is as far from the truth as the North pole is from the South pole. Communities that had gushing water before the ANC government came on stage are without water. In very rare circumstances they provide water in Jojo tanks to families in the event of a funerals or when there is some special occasion. One wonders what they think people use when there is no bereavement.

They have under taken that people will “fall asleep without fear” yet crime is shooting through the roof and “listening to the rain on the roof” is mere wishful thinking. Some people have no roofs above their heads; they get drenched in the ramshackles they sleep in.

The good clinics and hospitals are far from being attained taking into account how patients sleep on the floor in state hospitals, how people die without care and how clinics in most villages operate from 08H00 to 15H00. It is as if disease is switched on and off at the pleasure of the ANC authorities.

Clinics with nurses who love caring for people are just, as contained in the NDP, are just wishful thinking when one takes into account that patients are invariably ridiculed and it is almost a norm, not exception, that women give birth outside clinics while urses are asleep, that is in villages where there are nurses a are supposedly doing night duty.

The document states that each community will have a school, yet they continue to close down schools in some communities and cause 5-year olds to travel from one village to the other for a basic Grade 1 education.

The ANC still has a long way to trudge if they hope to remain in charge of the lives of South Africans.

Despite the undertaking in the New Development Plan, that they will strengthen their resolve to live with honesty, to be set against corruption and dehumanising actions, some top leaders of the ANC are caught up in a web of corrupt activities with the Gupta family.

Almost every other senior member of the ANC and some of their trusted bureaucrats in government and in the parastatals are caught and kept in the maze of corruption thanks to the Gupta family.

It is surprising why no charges are being preferred against those suspected.

In fiteen years after ascending to power, the ANC surrendered themselves to the Gupta family because most systems of good governance have been undone since 2009.

The question remains whether the New Developmemt Plan they envisaged from 2009 was to deliver governance and the country to the brotherhood in Saxowold.

Sipho Mfundisi

President