APA-Johannesburg (South Africa) South Africa could plunge into chaos and become a failed state unless tough decisions are made to resolve economic challenges and corruption currently facing the country, a senior governing African National Congress (ANC) official has warned.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula told the BBC’s HardTalk programme on Monday night that while external forces such as the global economy, impact of Covid and the war in Ukraine were partly to blame for South Africa’s woes, the blame also lay partly with “some of our own weaknesses in terms of managing the economy well”.
“If certain things are not resolved, we will become a failed state, but we are not journeying towards that direction,” Mbalula said.
South Africans have been experiencing up to 12 hours of power blackouts for the past few years, accompanied by failure by most municipalities to provide essential services such as clean water, refuse collection and road rehabilitation.
These woes have seen the country experiencing preventable diseases such as cholera that has so far claimed at least 15 lives across Africa’s most industrialised state.
Living standards have been tumbling over the past few years amid rising prices of basic commodities, with youth unemployment rate soaring to above 50 percent while 60 percent of all South Africans are currently living below the poverty line.
The worsening living standard has triggered daily protests across South Africa, prompting fears that the country could implode one day and become totally ungovernable.
JN/APA