Zuma: Serious economic transformation can't be ignored any more

Cape Town - There are certain serious economic transformation issues that cannot be ignored any more, President Jacob Zuma said at the Chris Hani Wreath Laying Ceremony and handover of the Chris Hani heritage sites in Boksburg on Monday.

He explained that the ANC government defines radical socio-economic transformation as the fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership, management and control of the economy in favour of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female.

Earlier on Monday Zuma met with Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, South African Revenue Service governor Lesetja Kganyago and SARS commissioner Tom Moyane to discuss the impact of the credit rating downgrades and how to respond adequately and unite the country moving forward.
 
"The finance minister has been engaging the business community. Engagements with all social partners including labour will continue, because we make progress and find solutions when we work together."

Zuma added that various challenges will be encountered along the road of transforming SA.

"We want to move beyond the minority control of our economic assets towards democratic, inclusive and equitable economic relations of control and ownership. We want to see more opportunities being provided for local producers to sell their products so that our hard-pressed economy can grow," said Zuma.
 
"We want to see more black owned companies benefiting from government’s R500bn procurement budget, so that we can further grow black business and entrepreneurship. We want to see more young people becoming entrepreneurs and obtaining support from government and the private sector."

READ: Gigaba's plan for radical economic transformation

According to Zuma, his ANC government wants to see more black people becoming farmers or industrialists and more black people owning JSE-listed companies.

Another important factor for him is to see an improvement in the implementation of the affirmative action policy, especially within the private sector.
 
"Reports by the Employment Equity Commission each year indicate that the top and senior management positions of top companies remain overwhelmingly white and male. Black professionals indicate that they are being overlooked for promotion in many companies," explained Zuma.
 
"The private sector also needs to attend to the accusations that the salaries of black and white professionals doing the same job are still unequal in this free and democratic South Africa."

Economic participation
 
According to Zuma, Hani advocated very passionately the need for SA's democracy to transform the systems of economic participation.

"He insisted that a democratic government had a duty to build a modern economy at the hands of all our people, particularly black people," said Zuma.
 
READ: 'Zuma's radical economic transformation is state looting'

In Zuma's view, allowing "the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the roots of racial supremacy and exploitation", and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.
 
He added that in his view, over the past two decades of democratic governance the ANC government has achieved much in the transformation of SA's economy.

"We have built a growing black middle class with access to work opportunities in areas that were historically denied to them. We have created pathways for the emergence of black-owned businesses in various sectors of our economy," said Zuma.

"However, the impact of these changes has not been to the desired effect. Twenty-three years into our freedom and democracy, the majority of black people are still economically disempowered. They are dissatisfied with the limited economic gains from liberation."
 
That is why Zuma's government decided to focus on radical socio-economic transformation in its remaining term.

He pointed out that in order to achieve this goal, South Africans must unite behind building a sustainable economy.

"We need to unite even more now given the challenges we face locally and globally," said Zuma.