Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. Today I'm in Johannesburg. My guest has made a name for himself as a larger-than-life character in South African politics. In the years after the overthrow of the apartheid regime, he rose to the top of the African National Congress Youth League, and that was a pathway

to a political career and to ministerial office. Fikile Mbalula served as sports minister under

President Jacob Zuma and transport minister in the cabinet formed by Zuma's successor, Cyril

Ramaphosa.

Now he's Secretary General of the ANC, a hugely important role as the ruling party gears up for elections next year, which could see it lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since liberation.

The reasons for public discontent are obvious,

a protracted energy crisis,

shocking levels of unemployment and inequality,

and systemic corruption.

The ANC has had 29 years in power.

Is it about to pay the price of failure? Well, Fikile Mbalula joins me now. Welcome to

Hard Talk. Thank you for having us and welcome to Lutuilia House. How disappointed are you with

the state South Africa is in today? South Africa is undergoing challenges like many other countries.

But I think to put us into a category of a failed state, it's an exaggeration.

I can give...

You think that's a conversation that South Africans are having amongst themselves?

Well, it comes from a pocket of the powerful thinkers in the country who project us

as displaying characteristics of a failed state, of course.

We may not be too defensive to that. If certain things are not resolved, we will become a failed state, of course, we may not be too defensive to that. If certain things are not

resolved, we will become a failed state, but we are not journeying towards that direction.

But the reality is that if you are a young South African reaching adulthood today,

you only have a one in two chance of actually finding a job.

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