Pahad was ready to confront challenges that bedevil SA: Mbeki

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Former President Thabo Mbeki says the late anti-apartheid activist Aziz Pahad was ready to confront the challenges that bedevil the country.

Mbeki expressed disappointment in Pahad’s death when South Africa faces various social ills.

Earlier this week, Mbeki attended a gathering convened by The Interfaith Forum of South Africa (TIFSA) where delegates bemoaned the socio-economic ills that continue to plague the country and lamented the ANC for governance failures.

Mbeki says the delegates were correct in their assessment of the current state of the country.

He has been delivering the eulogy at Pahad’s memorial service at the University of Johannesburg in Auckland Park.

“What these people organised by the interfaith forum said on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was correct. They were not inventing the fact that we had a mother in the Eastern Cape who murdered her three children and killed herself because they had run out of food. That’s a signal of something that has gone very wrong. What they were saying those people was correct and the challenge we face today, those of us who are alive, is how do we respond to that reality. That’s why again I say I feel very sorry that Aziz left us when he did because he was very, very ready to confront that truth and do something about it.”

ANC memorial service for Aziz Goolam Hoosein Pahad: