Jacob Zuma

JOHANNESBURG. – President Jacob Zuma used the 24th commemoration of Chris Hani’s death to call on South Africans to unite against racism.

He said at the Chris Hani Wreath Laying Ceremony and handover of the Chris Hani heritage sites in Boksburg yesterday that last week’s marches, calling for his resignation as president, demonstrate that racism is real and exists in South Africa.

“Many placards and posters displayed beliefs that we thought have been buried in 1994. It is clear that some of our white compatriots regard black people as being lesser human beings or sub-human. The racist onslaught has become more direct and is no longer hidden as was the case in the early years of our constitutional democratic order. Racists no longer fear being caught or exposed,” said Zuma.

“We call upon all freedom loving South Africans to unite and fight racism in our country in the memory of Chris Hani. Comrade Chris Hani abhorred racism and fought against it all his life. He tragically lost his life at the hands of hard core racists. It will take time but it needs to be done if we are to achieve a truly united non-racial society,” said the president.

Hani was killed in 1993 outside his home in Boksburg. Polish immigrant and anti-communist Janusz Walus shot Hani while he was walking home from a morning jog.

Clive Derby-Lewis was arrested as an accomplice for lending Walus his gun.

Hani’s death marked a turning point in South African history which was on a brink of civil war.

President Zuma also said at the same event that there are certain serious economic transformation issues that cannot be ignored anymore.

He explained that the ANC government defines radical socio-economic transformation to mean 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 yesterday President Zuma met with Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, SARB 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.”

President 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.”

According to President Zuma, his ANC government wants to see more black people becoming farmers or industrialists and more black people owning companies that are listed on the JSE.

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 President 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.”

According to President 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.

In President 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 a lot 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 President 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 dis-empowered. They are dissatisfied with the limited economic gains from liberation.”

That is why President 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 President Zuma. – News24/ENCA.