South Africa’s economy is still under apartheid-era white minority control and blacks must reclaim the continent’s financial and mining powerhouse, President Jacob Zuma said yesterday.
Zuma told a key meeting of his ruling African National Congress that a new economic direction was needed 18 years into after the end of apartheid. “The structure of the apartheid economy has remained largely intact and has not included higher or inclusive growth,” Zuma told thousands of ANC delegates in his opening address at a four-day policy conference.
“The ownership of the economy is still primarily in the hands of white males as it had always been,” he added.
Blacks own at least 17 per cent of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the continent’s largest bourse, according to an on-going study by the JSE.
Foreigners however own half the JSE, presenting a conundrum to the party’s statements.
The party is facing increasing pressure over massive social inequalities, poor service delivery and a jobs crisis which it has failed to rein in after being handed consistent wins at the polls since the first free vote in 1994.