Few reasonable South Africans would not agree that radical economic transformation is needed if what is meant by that is "to reduce racial, gender and class inequalities … through more equity with regards to incomes, ownership of assets and economic opportunities", to quote Edna Molewa (Radical transformation the only way to halt the monopoly grip on the economy, September 29). That said, few reasonable South Africans would also, surely, disagree that the looting of state enterprises by politicians and companies for personal gain equates to theft. So, it follows that if the perpetrators of the latter try to camouflage their criminality by describing it as radical economic transformation, then not only Johann Rupert but most South Africans should decry this in the strongest possible terms. Similarly, it is wrong to equate building world-class businesses, as the Rupert family has done, with "the business" of looting the state. They are simply not the same thing. Nor has anyone ever sa...
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