BALEKA MBETE: THE WORLD BANK IS NOT GOD

Baleka Mbete was part of a panel being interviewed by international news network Al Jazeera on whether the African National Congress had betrayed the late Nelson Mandela’s legacy.

A YoutTube screengrab shows former National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete during an interview with Al Jazeera. Picture: Al Jazeera English/youtube.com

Babalo Ndenze
Eyewitness News

CAPE TOWN - Former National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete dismissed economic studies which suggested that South Africa was the most unequal society on earth.

Mbete was part of a panel being interviewed by international news network Al Jazeera on whether the African National Congress (ANC) had betrayed the late Nelson Mandela’s legacy.

The panel also included former ANC Members of Parliament Makhosi Khoza and Andrew Feinstein.

Mbete left many stunned after she told Al Jazeera inequality in South Africa was greatly exaggerated.

The former deputy president and ANC chairperson was responding to a question about a World Bank study that gives South Africa the unfortunate title of being the most unequal country in the world.

“But I wonder whether it’s not an exaggeration. I really think we need to see both good and bad. The World Bank is not God.”

Mbete has also dismissed remarks by President Cyril Ramaphosa among others, who's admitted on a number of occasions that much of the past 10 years under former President Jacob Zuma’s watch had been a lost decade.