Politics
South Africa: ANC govt to help black people earn more ownership of economy
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) began a key policy conference Tuesday that pushes for a “second transition” to give black people more ownership of Africa’s largest economy, two decades on from apartheid.
Amid lagging growth and increased inequality, the ANC hopes to draw up a five-year plan to give the economy fresh impetus.
“The policy conference will represent a paradigm shift in the approach of the ANC towards the economic development of our country,” one of the discussion documents said.
Around 3,500 delegates from the country’s nine provinces are expected at the four-day conference in Johannesburg.
The conference was due to start late as delegates queued to enter conference venue in Midrand, north of Johannesburg. President Jacob Zuma is expected to deliver the main address later in the day.
Eighteen years after the end of the brutal white supremacist rule (apartheid), saw democracy replace white minority rule, critics accuse the ANC-led government of not doing enough to reduce poverty and inequality.
“A lot of black people don’t approve of our democracy if it still excludes them of the economic mainstream,” said the Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela.
