PETER BRUCE: Nice speech, Mr President, shame about the lack of substance
'The ANC has been talking about inclusivity for decades and it still hasn't been able to describe in any detail what it entails'
EXTRACT
Welfare is not inclusive. It merely keeps the poor poor. Our electoral system isn't inclusive either - it doesn't make public representatives accountable. Economic growth as we measure it isn't inclusive. It is just a number. The new draft Mining Charter is the opposite of inclusive - it will merely create more elites as the floor for black shareholding rises from 26% to 30%.
Inclusivity requires, of every law and every activity of government, that it measurably includes more South Africans in its benefits. It is hard and intricate work, going beyond the dream of clean government to make absolutely sure that in some way every single South African has a material stake in the physical wellbeing and prosperity of our country.
There is only one path to follow to get there. We must reform the way we create wealth and the way we distribute it, and the vehicle for doing that is profit.
President Cyril Ramaphosa made a soaring speech a week ago to a Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation conference in the Drakensberg on inclusive growth. "If we are to liberate ourselves from the shackles of the past and the troubles of the present," he intoned, "we must be prepared to dream. "We imagine a country where no one is afraid to walk the streets at night, where families sleep peacefully and all pay tax knowing that their hard-earned money will be well spent and properly accounted for."We see a country that has embraced the benefits of technology for economic growth, social development and for more effective governance." And so on. But watching from afar, the conference, a great opportunity for actually describing in granular detail what inclusive growth might entail, was just ordinary. The ANC has been talking about inclusivity for decades and it still hasn't been able to describe in any detail what it entails. Welfare is not inclusive. It merely keeps the poor poor. Our electoral ...
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