South Africa is still far from transformation

Twenty-five years into our democracy transformation still remains a very heated and emotional topic among many South Africans.

It’s an issue which epitomises what many of us would truly want to see in all spheres of our society and a real reflection of the demographics of our country.

Now, transformation to some corners of our society, especially white South Africans, is seen merely as what others term “reverse apartheid” and is seen as being some what oppressive and biased towards them.

We, as South Africans, need to have an honest discussion when it comes to transformation, we need to take the history of our country into consideration and how for hundreds of years black

South Africans have been excluded from the economy of this country. We cannot now come and claim to be a nation when the playing fields have yet to be levelled and when the majority of this beautiful country remain excluded.

As much as we talk about transformation and how we’d like to see our state-owned enterprises (SOEs), private sector, academia and all spheres of our country transformed, we need to ask ourselves what kind of transformation do we really want.

For example, let’s look at our SOEs, many of them still remain untransformed with regards to procurement and big contracts which are awarded.

When one looks at contracts which government awards to businesses, you realise that the majority of contracts are without a doubt awarded to whiteowned big businesses, is that transformation?

Transformation should not only be looked at from one side, it should go both ways and should go across all boards.

Modibe Modiba, Benoni