Prince Charming does not exist. It’s time for SA to save itself
South Africans still cling to the notion of waiting for help or redemption from benevolent outsiders
Once upon a time, we were told the stories of Cinderella, Rapunzel and Snow White who were rescued from lives of darkness and disparity by fairy godmothers, glass slippers and handsome princes who rode white horses. Perhaps, years after first hearing these stories, as Africans – or as South Africans, in particular – we still cling to the notion of waiting for help or redemption from benevolent outsiders. We are dealing with a 36.4% unemployment rate; a poverty rate exceeding 50% with more than 30m South Africans living on less than R992 a month; massive inequality; and a widening gap between the rich and the poor. To spur inclusive growth, we must adopt and embrace wage equalisation. South African CEOs earn 541 times the country’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP), compared with 483:1 in the US and more than double the UK’s 229:1. The growing middle class has boosted consumption, but this has been driven largely by mounting household debt, rising from 54.1% of disposable i...
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