Addressing the Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Key to Saving the Economy

Policies such as Black Economic Empowerment and preferential procurement had done nothing to bridge the “huge canyon” that existed between the rich and the very poor, said National Planning Commission Minister Trevor Manuel on Monday evening.

Manuel said the incorrect implementation of BEE had made many people rich without them having to “lift a finger” and “what frequently masquerades as black success makes me sick to my stomach”.

Speaking on ‘The Role of Education and Entrepreneurship in Advancing Social Transformation’ at the University of the Western Cape to the Community of Mandela Rhodes Scholars, Manuel made a thinly veiled reference to the likes of businessman Kenny Kunene as an example of “conspicuous consumption masquerading as success”.

“We need to stop the race to the bottom.. like people who eat sushi from naked women,” he said. Rather, successful business people needed to “plough back, not to plunder”.

In order to build a successful economy South Africans needed to return to the selfless activism so evident in the anti-apartheid struggle and contribute to society.

How do deal with “the missing middle” was a challenge which spoke to the absence of entrepreneurial spirit in South Africa.

However, there was a need to focus on a state that was capable of delivering on the requirements of the Constitution.

It was on this point that he was tackled by fellow panellist Dr Mamphela Ramphele, who said the problem with “our governance view” is that you did not need to be competent to be in government, and once there, you did not need to improve your abilities.

Additionally, Mamphele said South Africa had not broken the link between governance and liberation struggle political practices.

“In South Africa we still have very senior people saying ‘we have been elected to the majority so don’t mess with us Mr or Mrs Citizen, we are in control’.”

As a result of maintaining the us/them attitude of liberation politics as opposed to embracing the ‘we’ of Constitutional democracy, South Africa was now “far behind” any development index one cared to look at.

Even if one looked an intra-African trade, SA was far behind.

“But if you were baking cookies, wouldn’t you want to sell them to your neighbours first, and find out what they’re selling? But no, we trade with countries far away instead of looking next door.”

Civil society, which could stand up to government, had also been made ineffectual by the state’s continual use of the race card.

“Where citizens dare to stand up to government the Race Card is played, and if you are black, it is played in that you are branded a ‘sell out’. So you withdraw, wounded. And in the psychodynamic of woundedness, the symptoms are self-loathing and self-sabotage.

When you are wounded you feel you don’t have the power to change your circumstances”

What the panel of Manuel, Ramphele, UWC Rector Brian O’ Connell, Dr Rhoda Kadalie and Mandela Rhodes scholar Athambile Masola agreed upon was the necessity for higher education standards in order to for people to have the skills to engage in the South African economy.

Additionally, civic education was required so that, Ramphele said, people understood the “difference between a Constitutional democracy and a Parliamentary democracy”.

“What is going to change SA is a change of mindset which can only happen when people are aware of their rights and choices leading them to make the correct ethical choices,” said Ramphele.