Former president Kgalema Motlanthe has condemned the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Motlanthe was addressing an online discussion by think tank Centre for Development and Enterprise on Wednesday, hosted by author Ann Bernstein.

"Any war doesn’t start when first shots are fired. There is always a build-up." he said.

Motlanthe said there had been opportunities to act to avoid the eventuality and outbreak of the war.

"We (South Africa) are an excellent example of that. There is no doubt there were opportunities that could have prevented the war's outbreak (between Russia and Ukraine)… once the war broke out, it is a no-win situation for both countries. Russians themselves sit with a war they didn’t approve of."

Motlanthe questioned the action taken by FIFA to suspend Russia from participating in international football.

"FIFA suspended Russia because of its invasion, meaning the separation of sport and politics is called into question. 

"The war itself should be condemned. No war solves [a] problem. My take on Russia's invasion of Ukraine [is that it] should be condemned," he said.

ANC reform 

Regarding the current state of the ANC, Motlanthe said the party was within its rights to embark on efforts to renew itself.

He added that the ANC's timetable should not bind South Africans and that South Africa should move on.  

"By the time the ANC believes it has renewed itself, it should catch up."

But Motlanthe added that current political parties in the country didn't represent the future, and that formations to take the country forward were still to come.

Motlanthe alluded to some of the opposition parties, mentioning "one" that didn’t recognise parts of the national anthem.

"It is an anomaly," he said.

"Parties, to be serious players going forward, are still to reemerge. This shows there is going to be realignment."

Motlanthe last year said factionalism within the party could destroy the ANC. 

"The problem is that we're openly trying to populate a list of candidates along factional lines. You ask yourself a question, where the ANC is? The ANC has to resist being reduced to factions.

"As the electoral committee, we had to raise it (factions) and call for action against factions," Motlanthe said.

"We suffer from a number of handicaps. Key among them is basic education, which must be fixed. We must get the German TVET system and implement it. Our TVET colleges are not producing skills solely needed by our economy."

Motlanthe said a high-level panel recommendation was to convince Parliament to amend the Labour Relations Act to create space for small entrepreneurs and operators, and exempt them from having to live up to the standards of collective bargaining councils.

"The taxi industry for years hasn’t been paying tax. They are currently organised, and SARS can easily bring them into the bracket of taxpayers. We should be establishing microfinancing for small businesses to start up capital and create jobs. The only way to reduce poverty is to get people to work."