the 1st time in the past few months in terms of corruption in terms of how bad things were something that happened we don't need an investigation because of been lots of investigations was the scandal involving then president zuma zone a state. homestead where nearly $23000000.00 u.s. dollars or $246000000.00 round of taxpayers' money was spent on what president zuma described a security upgrades which included a swimming pool and an amphitheater i'm curious what kind of security was the swimming pool providing the van president of south africa where a minister was in charge of that investigation and in his view that was notice we mean this is the police minister the president and he put out a video to classical music in which he described the swimming pool as a fire prevention measure. he did. that's the report to you and you're accepted that seriously it's not up to me it's not apt to

millions along to you i said did you agree with that assessment of i mean this is serious stuff we could law for $23000000.00 on pools of amphitheatres in a country where half the population lives on less than $5.00 a day you accept let's use no it's not a question of accepting or not accepting part of the challenge that we have is that part of that is actually government property which was actually for purposes of ensuring that there are health facilities nearby for the president to be able to be looked after or any of the stuff in 2016 there was a landmark constitutional court ruling that said. jacob zuma should pay some money but it also ruled against the national assembly that you were speaker saying you would quote fail to fulfill its constitutional obligations to hold the president accountable that's a that's an indictment of you years a speaker of parliament is not an indictment of an individual because the

individual actually does not determine the position that parliament or the national assembly actually end up taking. democratic alliance versus speaker of the national assembly shall you because i am their leader and therefore on behalf of the institution i become the person who is quoted do you believe you are a neutral impartial speaker. then why is it that as a neutral impartial speaker you had to apologize for calling an opposition leader julius malema a cockroach at an a.n.c. rally is not a neutral impartial. not in parliament so let's not say you only neutral in part. i said that even you know political context i was in the north where i'd had to apologize you don't sound very apollo's it was not correct for me to call another person a cockroach whether i'm. just looking forward south africa has

a new president who claims to be determined to stamp out corruption even though he himself has been accused of misleading parliament over a campaign donation and even though out of $21.00 corruption scandals during the 25 years in office just one senior party figure has been brought to account in terms of going to jail how can anyone have confidence in the current government to clean things up when only one person went to prison i think you have seen the excellence of the president. how he has dealt with the issues of strengthening the institutions of governance strengthening in particular the justice system bringing in people who are going to act differently people who are going to have the courage and to do things focused on correcting what has been wrong in the system just on the one person who was sent to prison this was the former chief whip

tony who was sent to jail for fraud i believe you accompanied him to the prison gate how is are not putting your party and your alliances above the interests of parliament in the country accompanied. me because i did not believe in what he was being said to have done and i accompanied him as a complete so you don't accept the court's verdict in a democratic so i'm not saying that i'm just telling you that i need my complete and i don't feel guilty for that you don't can you tell our viewers what position tony and danny this ex convict was appointed to by the mc last year position he was appointed to chair of the working group on corruption. one thing is how the person who went to prison. on corruption in the a.n.c. political lives. we look at things sometimes not exactly the way

other people like there and agree with. let's go to our panel who waited to come in i'm joined by mco seacoast a former m.p. who resigned from the party in 2017 after calling for president zuma to step down following corruption allegations in your view macos and you were there for a lot of this period did the a.n.c. fail to hold president zuma to account did the speaker fail to hold the president to account in your view of course yes i think they did fail to hold him to account and in fact some of us that we're speaking out against what we saw is an attack on the constitution and on to social contract where persecuted and especially. is somebody that i held in high esteem is somebody who will mold it me as a young person and as a feminist i expected to date or to have receive some kind of support from

her so from that point of view i honestly to think it in terms of into tisha snus leadership in treaties justness i think they have to prove themselves if they are to people leafed did you fail to give me the support she needed to let it out i didn't let it down she and i had a quick exchange outside just to agree that we have stuff to catch up on and we will do that ok i mean i'm all for you catching go but just for the purposes of the people watching around the world in this room you want to deal with the point you made it down as a feminist as an m.p. trying to hold the president you were there to back her oh i was there to back up when she needed security i made sure that we should look into the issues of what kind of support parliament had to ensure she had and we did. to that very fairly

very focus said lee. kalani is the executive chairman of south african business abroad a member of the a.n.c. do you think people have faith in the sea to deal with this corruption issue that's been festering on their watch especially given the current president has his own campaign donation issues going on where local south africans have a huge feat in the african national congress you must remember that we inherited a situation where we have an infrastructure that was not capable to assist our people hospitals were only designed for the privilege the majority of black people were able to attend hospital if you are known to universities they were not there catering for black people so all that the government of the is have done so much for the south african people it is for that reason the low that they keep voting for them but i must add something else the fact that i am having this privilege to have this discussion with you in the united kingdom it is also that

the government of the n.c. we were not allowed of black people to be able to see the top free me it was a criminal offense for me to be the last thing i wanted to see it come to the corruption issue very briefly when it happens in africa we label it as corruption but it happens in the hours of course on m p is out came into houses and we call it a scandal but when he's in africa is corruption charges leveled is the. thank you thank you let me bring in andrew feinstein who's another former c m b resigned back in 2001 these are all sort of off to the party a personal journey inside the a.n.c. is now director of corruption watch u.k. and you said you left the a.n.c. because the government at the time refused to investigate corruption properly how bad has the corruption issue become for the south african government not just on the tab mbeki but jacob zuma and the polls. 1st of all many i think that kalani is

point is very well taken i think that we mustn't lose sight of what has been done in 25 years of democracy nor lose sight of the fact that what we inherited was a systemically corrupt system the biggest problem has been however that our only to ship including comrade and better who's been a very important leader of our liberation struggle and of our democratic era have not been prepared to call out colleagues in leadership who have engaged in corruption and that started all those years back with the arms deal that i tried to investigate in which south africa spent $10000000000.00 on weapons that we neither needed no barely used and the primary reason that was done is because around $300000000.00 of bribes were paid and unfortunately then president tabo mbeki was prepared to undermine our institutions of democracy including parliament that he and many others that sacrificed so much to bring about in order to cover up

corruption if that had been stopped then. i don't think we would have gone on to the state capture crisis the unkindly cry to let me put that point to did you never feel the need to call out your jacob zuma or did you just feel you couldn't you were in the big 6 in the leadership of the party you know there is a tendency to be even hiring for things to be damned positions to be taken against people before the actual investigation has been down but you're acting like this is just popped up now as these things were happening you were being criticized you don't just get a report from someone and they declare whatever they say whatever they believe you must do and you just hash off and do it you go to app apply your own mind into whatever people see ok right under is just right to come back in very briefly and these are constitutional bodies there was a report from the auditor general about corruption in the arms deal in 2000

parliament decided unanimously to conduct a multi-agency investigation into it it was the leadership of the a.n.c. that stopped that investigation because leadership of the a.n.c. with themselves complicit and this is been the problem time after time the information has been there from constitutionally mandated bodies another big topic in the news especially right now in south africa in recent months your country seen an increase in violence and a phobic attacks foreign owned shops run sacked protests and chants of foreigners must go back to where they've come from how worried are you about the this rise in violent racism we are very worried. and there have been statements not only from the president himself both in south africa and in a neighboring countries for instance when you went to president mugabe's funeral he took the opportunity to apologize and put a perspective on what had happened it was not only foreign nationals that we cute

many south africans were also. victimized in that public violence our minister of international relations has actually been having a meeting with all. embassies or ambassadors' will you say that you're worried you say the president's worried and yet a n c ministers have kind of helped escalate this crisis you have the deputy minister of police a couple years ago saying we foreigners of taken over the city centers in johannesburg he said we fought for this land we cannot surrender it to foreign nationals but then the health minister blamed overcrowded hospitals and diseases on foreigners this is the kind of far right xenophobic rhetoric that we see in other parts of the world leading to violence this is not helpful we nor recently at a meeting we had as the national executive committee led by the president in the top 6 we've all our branches in johannesburg discussed this issue

and we took a leadership position that said we must correct whoever is involved so you say you say when i want to branch leaders did the a.n.c. premier of how david macor did he not get the memo because he said this year some specific crimes are committed by specific nationalities drugs there are specific nationalities how do we have so many drug terms that are operated by nigerians is that helpful rhetoric when people are being not heard fooled by this also true. it's true what's true in certain cases people have been found to be guilty of running dry or no juries in this is sam nigeria literally. you said there are many south africans also i'm glad that you can where you stand on the one hand you're saying we shouldn't single them out on the other hand you're saying it's true what he says when years i'm out it is true when it is true it's true but i do condemn a statement that makes it sound like all nigerians are doing all they criminality

the ease in johannesburg when in fact we ourselves are also involved because because they are worried are you the truth about what is currently happening is that you have a quantico corrupt police service if you know that there are people that track trafficking or doing something why are you not arresting them because that is a crime but you to attribute that to a specific nation ality it is enough for pick because you are basically inciting the communities to rise against for the nice because they would start looking at for the night is the people that are putting in tribes when they try trafficking is happening in collusion with the police. and do you agree with or disagree with the well meant i must take this opportunity to once again my president have turned this inside out. and i think. the guests have turned to the 2 opera joys of

into india and the ordinary african here or a latino with an african heritage on behalf of the sort of libyans in the sport of whatever but when there is a criminal element let's be able to point them out by race nationality i didn't say that i mean even the whole lot of women and even with respect i need to learn when former president he said in september yes the truth of the matter is that there are nigerian criminals who are involved in drug dealing and that's true. there is no south african that goes around chasing nigerians because they are nigerians is are not denialism of the problem by me give you more all or if you agree with that not here i have to give you what the polls that have said what you have said but stuff tested and the report says to us now 16 people have passed away on the recent incidents that are out of the 16 there's no way of not though there's no one from nigeria 14 a south african oneness or milo why are we not talking about that as facts ok let

me bring is that under feinstein it's not a problem there's no issue with. the 1st is that the key roots of this problem are the levels of economic inequality that you mention in south africa and these have to be addressed i'd like these have to be addressed by our leadership the 2nd problem is the lack of accountability of leaders when they make statements like you mention from the premier of the how time province that is completely unacceptable that is the language of trump and for raj that is not the language that should be coming from the leadership of the liberation movement with the proud tradition and history of the african national electorate rudely they. should stop using the live language of trump and fraud that those are he's with and i'm asking if you agree with them xenophobic it is it is if it is people in your

house guilty of xenophobia sam people are not all senior people some. senior people yes ok i'm glad we can agree on that on that note it's time for a break after a very lively 1st half join me after the break for part 2 of her dad where we'll hear from our very patient audience here in the oxford union and continue our discussion of the andes legacy. the environment doesn't know any boundaries what goes out into the environment goes around the world. on the grounds that it's a very modern way to. believe the measure of progress. the domestic population. there is a. circle of poison on al-jazeera. and

act of youthful defiance. your turn next doctor also out on the school board they arrested me at home at 4 in the morning while the electric shock treatment was the worse that triggered a revolution. the arrest of those children sparked it all of which became a battle without and that was the beginning of the armed struggle with syria. the boy who started the syrian war on al jazeera. i'm kemal santa maria with another look at the headlines on al-jazeera the pressure is piling up on lebanon's prime minister after a christian party quit the coalition government it's plunged the country into further political turmoil this latest move comes as thousands of people protested for a 3rd day in beirut demanding a revolution they want the government to resign they want. this latest round of

protests triggered by a government decision to impose a tax on the usage of whatsapp and the headlines the u.k. has asked the e.u. for a 3 month extension to brag that parliament forced prime minister bars johnson to send a letter seeking a delay after he lost a crucial vote also crucially he didn't sign the letter and included another document which said an extension would be a mistake meanwhile outside the british parliament hundreds of thousands of people converged to demand a 2nd referendum protesters traveled from all over the country to take part in that rally many of them cheering as the prime minister's deal to leave the e.u. was delayed. spain's acting prime minister has dismissed catalan leaders call for dialogue independence supporters are angry that 9 of their separatist leaders have been imprisoned by the spanish government. turkey's president says he

will resume an offensive by his forces in northern syria and quote crush kurdish forces if they don't withdraw from the proposed safe zone a truce is largely holding despite both kurdish forces and turkey accusing each other of violations under a deal brokered with the u.s. kodesh fighters have to leave an area which is 32 kilometers deep into syria where turkey wants to establish its so-called safe zone. there's a curfew in place in parts of chile's capital after more protests over a planned public transport fare hikes president sebastian pinera has now backed down on the hikes the crowds those still out on the streets the decision to increase fares provoke nearly 2 weeks of demonstrations. and a direct flight from new york to australia has touched down in sydney as part of quantities attempts to expand long haul commercial flights the boeing dreamliner aircraft took 19 hours and 15 minutes to reach sydney it carried 15 people most of them pilots and cabin crew who was brain monitoring equipment to see the effects of

long distance travel on them back with the news hour in half an hour head to head continues next. thank you but you're watching head to head on al-jazeera english my guest today is miss blake and betsy former speaker of the south african parliament former deputy president of south africa we were talking in part one about the political economic legacy of a.n.c. rule one of the low points many would argue of that period was during president tabo mbeki time in office between 190-2008 his dinner list positions around aids and hiv and his refusal to allow antiretrovirals which led according to a harvard university study to more than $330000.00 premature deaths as someone who was an ally of president mbeki at the time or someone who was deputy speaker and

then speaker of parliament at that time what do you say to your critics who say that he and you were effectively complicit in those unnecessary deaths hundreds of thousands of people. they were putting it mady is if we set and actually pull our tent that thousands of people must die no it was not like that it was a process of course and our role as parliament through the 11 portfolio committee of health is to exercise oversight over what the executive is doing and it is not as though this health committee was seized with the issues that whole world was trying to find out what's the best thing to do and i must say that it has been said internationally that south africa we was one of the countries where the best was being tried at all times yes all times we made mistakes yes we did make me still ever have

a frank conversation. about his views on the subject that led to so many deaths did you ever talk to him about him claiming not to know anyone who died of aids him saying there's no link between hiv and aids his health minister suggested you eat beetroot and garlic to combat aids did you have a pushback against any of that ridiculousness maybe it was not for me personally why you tunic are a pall of hope members in any scene was our share of the easy with parliament hours busy with all the busy people with years very busy people when diane people were dying including in my own family but it does not mean we conspired and actually plot said that people should die mistakes were happening people who were making efforts are missing. golic to here in the us is smaller than a mistake. or you call it madness and i can only call it an

unfortunate moment in the history of south africa. seems like an understatement given where our material died very very unfortunate moment and we wonder where the earth is old and our new use the language. is come out of matt and we're actually much better than we ever thought we were going to do that is true if you have improved and i have led i'm glad i'm asking you a lot about is when people were dying and you didn't seem to be doing anything because you say you were too busy maybe i'm not a doctor i couldn't even if i wanted to could have said mr president you're wrong even in private if you don't want to do it publicly what did you do that i never had a private moment with you were on the national committee of the i was but that's not a private ok in a room full of you and your fellow senior colleagues could have said i think this is wrong the subcommittee of health in the agency was the one that was focusing on

this matter and therefore that's why as we speak today was totally out of those woods that we were in well other people at the time were speaking up and one of them was former president nelson mandela he made a passionate plea at the a.n.c. national executive meeting in 2002 to lease distribute until retroviral drugs to pregnant women with hiv but he was heckled by party members at that meeting mandela was heckled he later said it was one of the lowest moments of his career but it was a low moment for the a.n.c. too wasn't. you don't think it was a little warm you want me to say no no of course it was a low moment i mean one witness to form a government minister and walk around at lodhi says a.n.c. members were like of pack of wild dogs tearing at their prey the prey being nelson mandela only 2 members defended mandela's right to speak out found the retroviral only to what was the point made in new recording or these about that moment what is

the power how does all take us how i belittle years is the past yes we have since come out of there and lie now doing way better than what happened in the families of the people who don't want some accountability and you're not going to get it from this woman who's sitting here tonight why because with her i don't he play in my presence they did not make me have the wherewithal at that time to understand even what the debate was about because this is one of the fundamental problems of the a.n.c. as a result of your history as a liberation movement the party loyalty and discipline and unity is always put before everything else and criticism debate is shut down whether it's on issues around corruption under president zuma or aids under president mbeki the party sticks together and doesn't say anything publicly about the bad leadership. you know maybe right now there's

a commission of inquiry headed by. deputy chief justice was on the zonder commission why we have that commission is because of a discussion of the national executive committee of the agency and a number of meetings insisted that we needed such a commission and that is why finally that commission was created there relating the day very early of the years of zuma very late in the dad grew with you because in let's say in the gin women should finish his term in parliament no you're not telling the truth yourself now did you not say that no you never souther ok that's right the point i was making is that in parliament we kept saying to the president president please form the judicial commission of inquiry so that we can get on with this inquiry into how in fact was this

state capture happening and yet president jacob zuma said in 2015 that the a.n.c. comes before the country that's a bit of a shocking statement for the present of a country to make it. so he made it. did you condemn him at the time for making way should i do agree with the statement i don't know them or not so you disagree while you're proving his point while you're proving is point no one will criticize me for no no maybe even of the country this mechanic out thing off why didn't you do it this way why didn't you scream at that moment why didn't you shall you could have said it softly no their point though is that if a person did not respond they way you want them to have responded so as not to mean they necessarily agreed so you disagreed quietly ok let's go to the panel who are waiting to come in i'm joined by under feinstein former and c m p you resigned in

2001 author of the book after the party a personal journey inside the see you were an m.p. for the 1st 2 years i think of president term is it fair to say that the debate over the aids antiretrovirals was shot down even when raised by someone like nelson mandela on the 28th of september in the year 2000. he had just been at the united nations where he had been forced to say that he was withdrawing from the science of the relationship between h.i.v. and aids he returned to n n c caucus meeting on that day and he said i have not changed my views hiv does not cause a the vast majority of m.p.'s including the leadership cheered tabel mbeki statement this was as the corrupt arms deal was taking place and the reason i linked those 2 very quickly is because of those 330000 avoidable deaths the

32000 babies who were born hiv positive every year for 5 years after that according to harvard university. it was at the time that we were saying we did not have the financial resources to provide antiretroviral medication but we were spending $10000000000.00 on weapons that we didn't need because of the drives and it speaks finally made it to the issue of accountability and this is where the n c has failed itself and the people of south africa so let me put that point to kalani color who is chairman of the south african business abroad and a member of the and see deal with that point under 330000 us 32000 babies born a year with hiv is that a stain on the conscious not just of south africa but specifically of the a.n.c. in your view. many things has been have have happened we feel sore about it but let's be honest about 2 things here the government of the african national congress

its own members that they go to a national policy conference to discuss policies how to help those who are suffering from this disease out of i think there's a perception here that the media didn't translate president i will maybe never actually denied the treatment must be given he was actually looking for a long term treatment not how it was true and involved being treated in dollars well i was miss or been through it is not part and parcel of it but president was saying let's look also at the nutrition how to help or people how to look at the long term prevention under the shaking had very briefly why it's very quickly i mean problem becky said explicitly that antiretrovirals kill the problem is the taboo and becky bought into the decision science on hiv and aids and to his credit . jacob zuma did not and ultimately rejected it but hundreds of thousands of south africans avoidably lost their lives ok because as a former n.c. m.p.

who resigned in 27 team after calling for president zuma to step down following corruption allegations because i asked mr betty about whether party loyalty is considered to be more important in the a.n.c. than the interests of the country she said she disagreed with jacob zuma statement which he made in 2015 saying emcees above the country is an accurate description of how the a.n.c. and its leaders behave well certainly from the experience that i have because i chose to play the constitution of the country but i was disciplined for not at hearing to the party position. notwithstanding that i too want to comment on this. i really do think that we have to meet that at its initial stages it was tragic a lot of women in particular lost did their lives and i don't think we should sugar

coat our mistake we should at need but what is good is that the a.n.c. did at some point to listen to civil society and they did a tear to the will of the people and hence the many lives were saved ok. or not note we're going to shift to our audience who've been waiting here in new york for the union to come in. here in the 2nd row thank you to mila publica while the state was being looted universities were being chronically underfunded and in 2015 in 2016 the fees must for movement shook the country and put this on the national agenda many of us suffered injuries from police brutality at the time in fact some students were killed benjamin petilla was killed at u.t. by police.