S. African ruling party pledges to counter corruption as inquiry continues

CAPE TOWN, March 22 (Xinhua) -- The African National Congress (ANC) is determined to get rid of corruption that has eroded its public support, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Friday.

The ANC needs to redress whatever has gone wrong, said Ramaphosa, who is also president of the ANC.

He acknowledged that corruption scandals have hurt the ANC and would likely dissuade voters from voting for the party in the upcoming general elections, Ramaphosa said when he was campaigning in Cape Town.

Ramaphosa told a press conference that the ANC must tell the truth to the public about an inquiry into state capture, which refers to alleged collaboration between the controversial Indian Gupta family and a number of senior government officials in looting state coffers.

"It was the ANC that said there should be such a commission because it was the ANC that realized that corruption and state capture had set in and we felt that we needed to address this," Ramaphosa said.

Eskom, which generates about 95 percent of the electricity used in South Africa, is the first state-owned entity probed by the commission. It has been implicated in a series of corruption scandals linked to the Gupta family.

Corruption and poor management are believed to be the major causes of the worsening power crisis in South Africa.

Telling the truth sometimes hurts, "but if we are serious about serving the interests of the people of South Africa, we must tell the truth," he added.

"Those who were responsible for anything that has gone wrong must be accountable. They must face the full might of the law," the president said.

South Africans is set to hold general elections on May 8. A poll conducted in February by the South African Institute of Race Relations showed the ANC was losing nationwide public support steadily and especially in Gauteng Province, the economic powerhouse of the country.

According to the poll, only 54.7 percent of those surveyed will vote for the ANC, down from the 62.1 percent in 2014.

In Gauteng, where the country's largest city Johannesburg and its administrative capital Pretoria sit, the poll puts support for the ANC at 41 percent, a 12-percent drop from the 53.6 percent in the last general election.

Meanwhile, support for two major opposition parties, namely the Democratic AlliANCe and the Economic Freedom Fighters, have been on the rise.

The ANC, one of the oldest liberation movements in Africa, came to power in 1994 following the downfall of apartheid. It has remained dominant ever since.