Not all gloom and doom, Mr Zuma

HIS stilted delivery aside, when President Jacob Zuma delivered his State of the Nation address last week, he was at great pains to decry the slow pace of “radical socio-economic transformation” in the country.

These new buzz words in the ruling party’s lexicon get to the heart of economic and social emancipation of all people in the country, but more specifically those who were institutionally marginalised by apartheid.

To amplify his point, Mr Zuma gave examples of how the economic situation of black people has not changed significantly since the advent of democracy and he cited as examples the gap in household incomes; that blacks own less than 10% of the top 100 companies on the JSE and what he called the slow pace of transformation in the workplace. Few can argue with the broad trend of Mr Zuma’s lament. Apartheid’s legacy left the country with mountainous backlogs in education, skills, income levels, human relations and land ownership that will possibly take decades to overcome. But all is not doom and gloom. When we look at the bigger picture, we must also accept that huge progress has, indeed, been made in the past 23 years. South Africa is not the country it was during apartheid and by all reliable accounts, things are certainly looking brighter on many fronts.

One reliable measurement is the latest transformation audit done by the Institute of Race Relations, which reveals that racial transformation of the South African workplace, asset ownership, and state institutions has been significant and continues to improve.

Data shows the proportion of top managers who are black has increased from 12.7% in 2000 to 27.6% in 2015 – that’s an increase of 117%.

Stock market ownership data says that levels of black African ownership increased from 14.9% in 2000 to 23% in 2013.

The Institute also looked at transformation in home ownership and found that the number of black people who now have a home has increased phenomenally.

But what is, perhaps, most encouraging is that after decades of forced separation and hurtful discrimination, race relations still remain generally sound in South Africa. But be warned – this is not a time for complacency. Our biggest enemy is the damaging political rhetoric from leaders who play up racial incidents and portray the repugnant words or conduct of the few as representative of the many.

Constructive debate involving all stakeholders in our country will deliver the radical socio-economic transformation we need.