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South Africa: President Zuma signals intent to accelerate black involvement in economy after elections
South African President Jacob Zuma. PHOTO/Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images
South African President Jacob Zuma said the government must push for increased black ownership of the continent’s biggest economy, signaling his policy focus as he prepares for a second term in office.
“We want to accelerate black empowerment because if we don’t, those who want to come into the economy become impatient and correctly so,” Zuma, 71, said yesterday in an interview at his official residence in the capital, Pretoria. “We are making progress but it’s not enough. The real ownership of the economy is still a problem.”
After 2 decades in power, Zuma’s party, the African National Congress (ANC) is facing the stiffest challenge to its rule in May elections. Many black South Africans are growing impatient at the slow distribution of wealth in an economy where whites still earn on average 6 times more than blacks.
Zuma admitted his government’s empowerment policies, which focus on transferring company stakes to black investors, haven’t done enough to redistribute wealth. The government has sought to refine the laws to ensure a wider section of the population benefits amid criticism from labor unions and opposition parties that the policy only benefits a small elite.
“It does not change much if people just own shares in companies, they have no control over companies,” Zuma said. “Let us have black industrialists. When we talk about radical change and the economic approach, we are looking very closely at what we can do to quicken that process.”
Rising public protests and a move by the nation’s biggest labor union to withdraw its support for the ANC in favor of forming a workers’ party indicate dissatisfaction with the pace of economic redress, said Aubrey Matshiqi, a political analyst at Helen Suzman Foundation, a Johannesburg-based research group.
“If what Zuma is promising is not going to change direction in the ANC’s economic policy, then it is likely that the formation of a labor party will attract voters who feel that the ANC is failing to deliver economic inclusion for the working class and the poor,” he said in a phone interview.
