Radical transformation a marathon, not a sprint - Davies

Pretoria - Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies who sat beside President Jacob Zuma as he chaired the Black Economic Empowerment Advisory Council workshop on Tuesday, said radical economic transformation is about going to the roots.

“I’m not going to saying anything different from what the president said on a few occasions. Radical means going to the roots, that’s what it means,” said Davies whilst addressing reporters on the outcomes of the workshop held at the CSIR.

The workshop was focussed around Radical Socio-Economic Transformation.

Davies said it was not a matter of whether or not things were done badly in the past, but that radical transformation was a matter of going to the roots in order to bring about changes in the structure of the economy, patterns of ownership, control and participation.

“The aim is by making radical changes in the economy [in order] to create a new path of inclusive growth, that is the aim of it.”

As an example, Davies spoke about colonialism and that under colonial rule, South Africa was a producer and exporter of primary commodities such as minerals, whereby the manufacturing processes used to happen outside of the country which he said was structurally wrong.

The solution to this, he said, was to industrialise the economy whereby manufacturing and processing happens within South Africa.  He said this was part of the fourth industrial revolution.

“Radical economic transformation is a marathon, not a sprint, if we don’t start to address the structural features of our economy which are inhibiting us from having a high level of inclusive growth we are not going to get there.”

The workshop has been used to find ways and hear proposals from those involved to better the participation of black people in the economy as well as address challenges of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act.

The proposals which are intended to strengthen the application of empowerment in South Africa will go to government and Cabinet.

The workshop was attended by members of the BEE Advisory Council; Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers; senior government officials, chairpersons and CEOs of major organs of state.

SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni and Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown were also expected to attend the workshop, but they did not show up.

Their name tags remained on the registration table.