Ramaphosa backs ‘State Capture’ probe

RUSTENBURG: It is critical that an independent judicial commission of inquiry be established to thoroughly investigate all allegations of “state capture”, said Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“It must be acknowledged that, in the public mind, the African National Congress and its government are increasingly associated… with rampant corruption and narrow personal enrichment,” he said. “This past week, the South African Council of Churches… warned that we were on the brink of becoming a ‘mafia state’. If we are to counter this grave threat… then it is absolutely imperative that we act with urgency and purpose.”

He also said it is necessary to give real content and meaning to the imperative of radical economic transformation to achieve inclusive growth.

Delivering the Moses Kotane memorial lecture in Rustenburg, he said it was the transformation that should be radical, “not the words we use, not the loudness with which we shout them”.

There was widespread acknowledgement, including from bodies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), that the problems of the South African economy were essentially structural, he said.

“It is these structural issues that are responsible for the extraordinarily high levels of unemployment and racialised inequality and poverty. This means that radical transformation must be about addressing these deeply embedded structural issues. Although we must approach this task with urgency, we need to understand that there are no quick or easy fixes.”

These problems include extremely high levels of monopoly concentration in the economy. This opens the door to collusion, anti-competitive behaviour, poor policy choices, and the stifling of small and medium-size enterprises. Ownership and management of major private corporations in South Africa remain racially skewed, he said.

“If we simply produce greater racial representivity without changing the structural problems of excessive monopoly concentration we will… just replace one elite with another.

‘‘We must use broad-based economic development, state preferential procurement, the black industrialists programme, and many other initiatives to actively de-concentrate the commanding heights of our economy, to ensure greater domestic investment and, above all, to create work and entrepreneurship,” Ramaphosa said.

Turning to land reform, he said if South Africa is to learn anything from other countries then it is necessary to realise that land reform needs to achieve an effective balance between food security and the imperative of social justice.