The Big Think Politics and Society
We need an Economy that will ensure the poor benefit We need Radical economic transformation that will go beyond the slogans" We must be careful of slogans because slogans don't bring about change, hard work does."
The same was reiterated by Mcebisi Jonas when saying“What we lose through state capture and corruption is what is forfeited by education‚ health and other developmental objectives.”
"We want a radical economic transformation that will restructure the economy, diversify the economy, create confidence in our economy, and make sure the poor benefit." says Gordhan
Jonas began his talk by saying as a country South Africa was facing its defining moment‚ both politically and economically. “Our country is in a crisis of leadership… You can’t have leaders who spend 80% of their time defending their problems‚” he said.
Gordhan was speaking alongside Mcebisi Jonas and Wits senior lecture Lumkile Mondi at the UJ Lecture entitled “State capture white monopoly capital and radical economic transformation: The Balance of forces”
We have to confront the reality that we are increasingly globally as a country becoming the capital of corruption and state capture. To understand this we have to look at the country’s state-owned enterprises which have become centres for money racketeering‚ Jonas said‚ pointing to the high budget contracts available at Eskom and Transnet.
Gordhan began his talk by saying that ‘We are standing here with Mcebisi Jonas not as victims but proud cadres of the ANC , proud freedom fighters who over many years together with other activist having intent upon creating a South Africa where all 55 million of people certainly do not live the kind of life they live today, they live a life which is in accordance with the bill of right in our constitution, they live where we can proudly say we have transformed South Africa as a country, where human dignity is enjoyed by every single citizen in every respect of human dignity” We have a serious decline in political morality, the quality of politics, the quality of our narrative, the quality in which we engage politically and the morality that underpins it is being eroded every single day
Lumkile Mondi who is part of the academics who developed a report on state capture, said their report argues strongly “that one of the interesting facts about the Zuma presidency is really the repurposing of the state for private accumulation in the form of what we call the shadow state” In a situation where the state has been repurposed is really a silent coup argues Lumkile.
Another implication of state capture is we are also destroying or undermining the ethical foundation of our society. We are beginning to have a blurring of what is right and wrong, what is acceptable or unacceptable.
The agreement within the speakers was that, the only way to challenge the state capture is by exposing it, informs and educate society on who are benefitting and who are losing during state capture
The economic impact of this is, we are today in negative growth as result, we have lower growth and lower revenue, we have less money in the fiscus to spend, more money to borrow when we do not have space to borrow, we have freezing investment side and as results no economy can grow, no jobs will be created, no money for education, for health will be found because of the state capture problem.
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KATALYTIK BUSINESS REVIEW
by Tsele Moloi