President Thabo Mbeki unveiled plans to spend 400 billion rand over five years to help South Africa’s deprived local communities on Sunday when he launched his ruling African National Congress’s (ANC) campaign for local elections in March. The ambitious blueprint includes giving every citizen access to water, electricity and sanitation, slashing unemployment and improving training to equip young people for jobs. The ANC has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994 and bolstered its hold on power with a sweeping win in national elections in 2004.

But in recent months it has struggled to contain growing dissent in its ranks over issues ranging from poor municipal services to the sacking and prosecution of Mbeki’s popular deputy, Jacob Zuma. The ANC commands unrivalled loyalty among the black majority, but political analysts say deep rifts within the party over Zuma and agitation by local communities could cost it support in the municipal vote or at least produce voter apathy. Mbeki told a rally in Cape Town that the ANC was determined to tackle South Africa’s most pressing economic problems – creating jobs to ease an unemployment rate officially put at over 26 percent, and improving skills in the labour force.

“We are determined to halve unemployment by 2014, to provide skills required by the economy and ensure that all South Africans are fully able to enjoy the full dignity of freedom,” Mbeki told party supporters packing a Cape Town stadium under a scorching sun. The ANC’s election manifesto distributed at the rally gave details of the infrastructure development plan. “Over the next five years government will invest more than 400 billion rand in infrastructure to create jobs and fight poverty, building roads, rail networks, dams, electricity generating plants and communications infrastructure,” it said.

“Everyone will have access to water, electricity and sanitation,” it said, referring to some of the most pressing demands of local communities.The plan is far more ambitious than the 100 billion rand the ANC promised to invest in public works in its manifesto for the 2004 general election. That has yet to be fully realised or to have a significant impact on the economy, analysts say. Mbeki said the ANC would get tough with corrupt or inefficient local officials blamed for frustrating the party’s plan to improve the lot of its grassroots supporters. Government statistics show that just over half South Africa’s 12 million households had running water and only about a quarter were connected to electricity by 2003.

Mbeki’s centrist economic policies have kept South Africa’s economy booming since he came to power in 1999 and the ANC says it is on target to deliver economic growth of 6 percent by 2010. Inflation remains within the government’s 3 to 6 percent target and the rand currency is at record highs against the dollar. Many grassroots members of the ANC and its communist and trade union allies complain that the government’s economic policies generally favour big business, not the poor.

Disillusion over Mbeki’s policies explained the huge support labour and communist allies of the ANC and its rank and file members showed for Zuma after Mbeki sacked him last June, analysts say. Zuma has since been charged with graft, and separately with rape. He denies both charges. Supporters of Zuma, a hugely popular politician adored for his common touch, continue to grumble after alleging a political plot to sideline their hero, who has effectively also been stripped of his position as deputy president of the ANC.

<B>John CHIAHEMEN</B>