# DA leader John Steenhuisen says the forthcoming National Dialogue will be an enormously expensive process with a lot of talking but nothing else to address the concerns of South Africans. He says an open letter by former president Thabo Mbeki confirmed that the dialogue was meant to benefit the ANC. Mbeki and president Cyril Ramaphosa earlier criticised Steenhuisen and the DA for withdrawing from the National Dialogue, after the axing of former deputy minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Andrew Whitfield. Steenhuisen says the dialogue is clearly a quest by the ANC to reach out to its disillusioned constituencies.
DA leader slams National Dialogue as an expensive talk shop