THE INTERVIEW
The new SA has failed blacks and coloureds while the elite thrive, and elections won’t fix it: Ex-statistician-general Pali Lehohla (Part Two)
South Africa needs to shift from an imminent ‘vulture culture’ to a ‘sacred national effort’ to rebuild and transform the country based on dialogue, evidence-based policy and economic modelling, former statistician-general Pali Lehohla warns.
Read Part One of our interview series here.
Despite BBEE and other economic transformation and education policies since the dawn of democracy, black and coloured South Africans have witnessed declining progression in skilled employment and higher education outcomes.
On the other hand, whites and Indians have benefited economically and educationally from the post-apartheid-era dispensation, as evidenced by their sustained progression on these fronts.
This is according to Dr Pali Lehohla, the former Statistics South Africa chief and academic.
See the Census 2022 report data here.
The census data – computed from the 2001 and 2011 censuses and 2016 Community Survey – “display a dismal and a declining progression for black and coloured citizens at [the] higher education level completion rate”, he said.
“In the Seventies and Eighties, for every one black person (as a proportion of their population group) who would complete a B-degree, there were 1.2 white persons who would complete the same. The corresponding numbers for 2016 derived from the Stats SA Community Survey show that for every one black person completing a B-degree there are six white persons who were doing the same.
However, while these figures painted a “quite depressing” picture of completion rates over the past 50 years, they were not unsurprising. In fact they should be expected, Lehohla added, pointing out that South Africans rank water, employment and electricity as priorities one, two and three respectively – and education at 15.
“This is very sad because education is central to nation-building and is an important instrument for transformational development,” he said.
Lehohla believes poverty and lack of funds are among the main factors impeding black progression in higher education.
“Fees Must Fall was aimed at fighting this. But instead, government has decided to extend NSFAS funding to only those they perceive to be poor, which is not a solution because it still leaves out many black students whose parents, on paper, may seem to afford to pay for fees but in reality they come from single-parent families and often their mothers have to look for the absent father to plead with him to pay.
“I think the government can solve this problem by paying for all students – rich and poor, black, white, Indians and coloureds – so that they can all have equal and unfettered access to higher education and they can qualify quicker, start their careers and start paying taxes. It is also in higher education that students from all race groups can start talking about the South Africa they want to build for their future.”
The then statistician-general, Pali Lehohla, at the Gauteng Economic Indaba in Johannesburg on 8 June 2016. (Photo: Gallo Images / Sowetan / Peter Mogaki)
In the workplace
The proportion of whites in the workforce rose from 42% in 1994 to 65% in 2023, according to the Stats SA Quarterly Labour Force Survey.
“For blacks, especially those aged between 25 and 34, the figures have regressed from a share of 17% of the skilled workforce to 14% over the same period. This means that the black youth in this age group have regressed. More generally, blacks are sadly stuck at 15% of the skilled workforce on average. They have never moved in 30 years,” Lehohla said.
He added that Census 2022 confirmed the trends that began in the early years of the post-apartheid dispensation in higher education: Whites sustained their apartheid advantage, with Indians gaining the most in post-apartheid South Africa. Blacks and coloureds progressed at a snail’s pace. They are well below 11% over 28 years, while their Indian counterparts are at 20% and whites at 44%.
The survey, issued in September 2020, revealed “substantial shifts towards skilled work among white and Indian/Asian populations, with the proportion of skilled workers increasing from 42% in 1994 to 61% in 2020 among the white workforce and an increase among the Indian/Asian workforce of 25% to 51% over the same period”.
According to these statistics only 15% of blacks on average and 20% of coloureds make it into the skilled workforce.
Lehohla concludes from these figures that “the new dispensation has delivered for the elite, but has failed the black majority and coloureds as groups. Whites and Indian South Africans have progressed significantly during this period.”
Solving black poverty
Lehohla said South Africans from all races and social strata need to ask themselves critical questions rather than rely on politicians to solve their problems.
He cited a 2021 Human Sciences Research Council report which revealed that the unemployment rate among black South Africans was 39%.
“This was at least nine percentage points higher than that of coloured South Africans and 30 percentage points higher than that of white people.
“In fact, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, those aged 15 to 34 have lost their share. One million and six hundred thousand [fewer young people] are employed 15 years later compared with 2008. Sadly this happens against a growing population. This implies that declining living conditions among the youth are accelerating. This (illustrated in the graph below) shows this untenable situation based on the Quarterly Labour Force Survey time series data between 2008 and quarter 3 of 2023.
“In the South African context, we have to ask: When will blacks and coloureds achieve as high a proportion of 65% as skilled workforce like their white counterparts and what tools [will] we need to use to achieve it and over what period of time?”
An election not pinned to these facts “can only condemn blacks and coloureds to the 15% and 20% skill level that was fossilised in 2000”.
A skilled and professional civil service
Lehohla believes South Africa can never achieve the kind of growth needed to uplift the poor, the majority of whom are black, unless it designs macroeconomic and social policies that are fit for purpose, and addresses its private- and public-sector corruption conundrum.
“We need to build a strong and ethical civil service sector. We need to build a civil service that is not loyal to individuals, but loyal to the nation and the Constitution. We need a civil service made up of technocrats and people with foresight. We also need an independent Public Service Commission to monitor the effectiveness and performance of the public service.
Teachers and the police cannot fix goods that were damaged at birth and whose systems of livelihoods were fossilised at 2000 levels of skill.
“When we have the civil servants such as the likes of Hendrik van der Bijl, the scientist and founding technocrat of Eskom in 1922, and others of his ilk, whose foresight and creation still serve society today, then we can understand what Madiba and his legacy mean to us.”
A broken society and me-me politics
Against the backdrop of a racialised society that continues to be defined by past injustices – compounded by entrenched greed and incompetence of politicians and government officials, impeding any meaningful transformation of society – Lehohla had a stark warning:
“A broken society can be very dangerous and self-defeating. Providing elections as an antidote to their disease is a dangerous drug which will suffer an all-round abuse of society by the frenzy me-me addiction.”
He maintained that successive censuses and surveys have revealed “fossilised” patterns where the vast majority of children have no fathers, which often results in heightened societal dysfunction and gender-based violence and other violent crimes. It also led to high school dropout rates, resulting in a rise in generational anger and exposure to criminality.
“We need to fix parenting in our society. Teachers and the police cannot fix goods that were damaged at birth and whose systems of livelihoods were fossilised at 2000 levels of skill.
Successive governments have failed to address the deepening indigenisation of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
“The graph below shows the schisms of parenting, where only 32% of fathers’ names appear on children’s birth certificates. In 68% the name of the father does not appear. In fact 66% of mothers to these children say they are not legally married, compared with 60% of fathers who claim to be married. Only 31% of mothers confirm a marital status against 60% of fathers claiming this. Fathers have long been discarded from family life that they schizophrenically lay claim to. Unfortunately this dysfunctional parenting is passed onto teachers and the police force to solve. It cannot and it will not work in a million years.”
Marital status of mothers and fathers.
Solving the economic impasse
Lehohla believes a dialogue should also focus on South Africa’s economic challenges and potential, on “who gains and who loses in our economy and why should that be the case and what compensatory mechanisms can be put in place”.
“For that to happen, you need massive economic modelling capability in the state and capacity among its operatives. For instance, developed nations use their pension funds to address their societal challenges and developmental agendas and missions. South Africa has R17-trillion in private sector-held pension funds and R3-trillion in public sector pension funds (mainly in Public Investment Corporation)… There are also some billions of unclaimed pension funds, the latter due to the policies of apartheid. We can use all this money as a force for good in the region.
“But the laws constrain the macroeconomic value of these instruments and resources. We also have governance issues, nobody would want to invest such massive funds to a government that is littered with corruption. But at the same time, it is inconceivable for the same corrupt hands to borrow from other lenders internationally. That process is equivalent to money laundering, because the same pensions would have to be used to settle state debt when the government defaults on paying international lenders.
“It is very sad that South Africa has all these resources and also has a vast mineral wealth, yet its economy is stagnant and 55% of its population live below the poverty line. So, the elephant in the room is least about elections, but all to do with this unresolved material benefits that a democracy has to dispense through sound economic and social policies.
“We may have to share lessons with Bolivia which faced similar problems like South Africa. But Bolivia chose to merge economic and social policies to answer poverty and inequality. They have made meaningful progress under Evo Morales since 2005 and currently under President Luis Arce, a politician, economist, banker and academic who worked under Morales and ascended to power in 2020. They are successfully addressing the question of the indigenous population. In South Africa the evidence is clear. Successive governments have failed to address the deepening indigenisation of poverty, inequality and unemployment.”
Lessons from Kigali
In 1994, as South Africa was transitioning from apartheid, a great calamity was unfolding in the Great Lakes region.
A plane carrying the then Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was shot down, sparking an anti-Tutsi minority propaganda campaign that led to genocide, with 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus butchered. The genocide only came to an end when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) toppled the government and began a process of national reconciliation.
Paul Kagame, who became president a few years later, has been accused of carrying out targeted hits on dissidents.
But Kagame is also credited with bringing about policies that have cleaned up the civil service and led to unprecedented economic and social progress. As a result, he has worn the tag of a modern-day benevolent dictator.
Lehohla said that while he does not want to be seen as praising despots and political demagogues, there are valuable lessons that South Africa can learn from post-genocide Rwanda and some of the impact of Kagame and his government.
We cannot move one step without cleaning our pigsty and hope the pigsty politics of our current edifice will change.
As the chair of the Africa Symposium on Statistical Development, Lehohla has visited Rwanda several times, notably in 2007, during the second symposium, where Kagame made a commitment to evidence-based policymaking.
“The results, 16 years later, continue to reflect that commitment. Their development is anchored on the principle of ‘Cleanliness is Godliness’ and the rest followed. For example, just look at the progress that Rwanda – our twin – has made in technology, on women empowerment, on youth development and its stature in world affairs. They are the host of the United Nations Datalab for official statistics, representing Africa. They have the highest number of female ministers on the African continent. Kigali is a sought-after capital because of its cleanliness and orderliness. The Rwandan GDP over the decade ending in 2019 grew at an average of 7.2%, something (that) South Africa can only dream of in three decades of democracy,” he said.
Some good lessons could be learnt or emulated from Rwanda’s post-war reconstruction and from Bolivia, “but these require frank conversations, agreements and commitments before an election can take place”.
“Kagame could have rushed for power in 1994. But instead he bided his time and was very tactful when he took over a few years later. Rwandans were only armed with brooms when the RPF came into power in 1994. They used these brooms to clean up scattered corpses, the streets, the villages, the environment and, after four or so years, they cleansed Rwanda of pig conduct using these brooms.
“We, in South Africa, have been moving in the opposite direction. We have vast resources and skills at our disposal but we are on the road to being a failed state, a banana republic. We cannot move one step without cleaning our pigsty and hope the pigsty politics of our current edifice will change. We need to learn from our twin Rwanda [about preparing for] how to use and dispense power.
“Politicians and political parties in South Africa have so far displayed high affinity for a vulture culture, wherein they fight over a dead carcass instead of showing a commitment to raising Lazarus from the dead, which is a monumental national task, well beyond the comprehension and capacity of political parties. It is a sacred national effort.
“That is why I argue that politics must pause, and society should reset on a national agenda to confront this cancer. Only then can society receive applications from jockeys that society can scrutinise for their competence to root out this deep-seated cancer of our nation. Unleashing this current mad rush into an election is not going to deliver judicious distribution of services across space and time to the nation.” DM
Who is Pali Lehohla?
- Pali Jobo Lehohla held the position of Statistician-General of South Africa from 2000 to 2017.
- He has served as co-chair of PARIS21 and chair of the United Nations Statistics Commission.
- He was the founding chair of the Statistics Commission of Africa and chaired the Africa Symposium on Statistical Development.
- He was vice-president of the International Statistics Institute and sponsor of the Young African Statisticians movement.
- He served on the 25-member Data Revolution panel appointed by the UN secretary-general, and was appointed to the Independent Accountability Panel for the health of women, children and adolescents.
- In 2015, he was recognised by his alma mater, the University of Ghana, for his contribution to the development of statistics and awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Stellenbosch in the same year. (Source: United Nations)
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You were warned by a man with vision. But did you listen? Nah… Live with it.
“In a multi-racial society where power must eventually be transferred into the hands of the numerically stronger Bantu, not only Whites, but also Coloured and Indians will go under. Over time even the Bantu masses will not benefit because on the strength of what has happened elsewhere in Africa, it must be taken into consideration that South Africa will develop into an autocracy or dictatorship. On account of their lack of ability to manage complicated administration, the country will moreover administratively and economically be destroyed and everyone – White and Coloured – end in chaos.”
Dr H.F. Verwoerd
Visionary… Wow…
NP coolaid…
I for one would not like to return to a paternalistic, racist, sexist short-sighted government whose horrendous policies have to a major degree given rise to the current dispensation and then use that outcome (self fulfilling professy) to justify their horrendous policies…
See, see… we didn’t give people education or economic opportunity… see they can’t govern themselves!
Gross…
Agreed 100%, Stuart! It’s actually frightening that there are still people out there willing to give Verwoerd any kind of credibility for his bigotry.
But he was right
Actually Verwoerd’s analysis was a prescient one. It was not any imaginary armed Struggle, civil disobedience or sanctions that made the end of apartheid inevitable, it was sheer numbers. By the 1970s, for every 1 white kid at school, there were already 10 black kids. A small minority was never going to be able to hold out forever.
What conquered apartheid was the majority’s untrammeled population growth.
However, the very thing that caused apartheid to fall, sheer numbers, carries with it the seeds of the New SA’s destruction too. SA is far from international markets and with mining in serious decline, it is losing its industrial base. The economy is simply not big enough to support 60 million people, which, along with the sheer incompetence of the ANC regime and the pernicious impact of racist AA and racist BEE, sees SA in a death spiral. It is truer to say that SA doesn’t have 40% or 50% unemployment, but rather that SA has 50% too many people.
This is not true. Sanctions, both external and internal, crippled the ability of the apartheid regime to keep control both domestically and regionally. SA was close to collapse by the time 1994 came along, with even the righ-wing governments of Reagan and Thatcher tossing the Nats on the scrapheap of history (and not a moment too soon).
The key problem is not population growth – it’s the rampant corruption of the ANC laid on top of luddite policies that failed in the rest of the world 60 years ago, allowed to continue unchecked by a useless, divided opposition that couldn’t put together a 5-year old’s jigsaw puzzle as they struggle to see over their own egos.
Nope, it was 10000% rampant, uncontrolled population growth, not sanctions. Take for example the arms sanctions. These didn’t prevent the previous government from having the 4th strongest army in the world at the time, because they established their own arms industry. They could easily quash insurrections, but eventually the overwhelming numbers made it impossible to sustain. A small minority of white taxpayers could never support a 10:1 majority.
Even today, and even if the ANC gets turfed out of office, there will still be far too many people in SA for the economy to sustain. The majority in SA has bred itself into an economic Malthusian trap, from which there can be no escape.
You’re deluded if you really think the SADF was the 4th strongest army in the world, given that the USA, USSR, UK, France, Israel, China, India, Germany and others would all have had larger and/or better equipped forces than ours. We lost Quito Canavale because we lost air superiority after we lost access to French and Israeli technology and were fighting the Cubans in our Cheetahs. It was the signal event that changed Southern Africa not.
On population, in Japan, UK, EU, China, slowing or declining populations are regularly cited as key threats to sustainable growth, with immigration seen as the solution (just not if you’re from the 3rd world, for right-wing populists in Europe and USA). Growing populations managed well create growing markets and growing economies – we live in a country where 80% of the population was seen as nothing but cheap labour for hundreds of years and now as nothing but voting fodder for the ANC, with little in the way of proper planning, policy or implementation to take advantage of the ‘population dividend’.
Your assertion that “a small minority of white taxpayers could never support a 10:1 majority” is breathtaking in its blinkered view of ‘development’ in SA, which actively sought to EXCLUDE the vast majority of the population from economic development. With proper economic policy, not yet seen in South Africa’s long history, this country has an abundance of natural and human resources to be a stunning place for all to live in.
Responding to DeeBee’s little jewel here:”We lost Quito Canavale” [sic] LOL!
You’re entitled to your – completely faulty – opinion, but, please stop spewing counter-factual, ridiculous nonsense. Cuban tanks destroyed: 94. SA tanks: 3. Almost 5000 enemy soldiers killed, against SA’s 31.
Since when has such an ass-kicking ever, ever been a so-called “victory.”
As for attempting to compare Germany to SA, economically speaking, gross economic illiteracy on display, matched only by your equally laughable military illiteracy. Not even in your backward little la-la-land will SA ever, ever be as rich as Germany.
Responding to your response below – not sure why it won’t let me respond directly: almost every neutral history of the battle at Cuito Cuanavale holds that it ushered in the beginning of the peace process in SWA/Namibia and that the SADF was no longer in a position to control the war in Angola and SWA. I was in the SADF at the time and had sight of numbers killed and wounded, and there was some very nifty fudging of the numbers on our side – none of the SWAT Force, UNITA or 32 Battalion troops from Angola were counted as ‘our losses’. Moreover, wining the battle but losing the war is obviously something you’re not familiar with – look it up. The SADF wasn’t in a position to continue the war in a meaningful sense, especially given the growing insurrections back home, which more and more troops were being dedicated to.
As for your snide comment about economic literacy, where did I ever compare SA to Germany in an economic sense? I compared respective military strengths based on your nonsense that SA was the 4th strongest army in the world! I was in that army, proudly, but would never make such a ridiculous claim! Mind you, coming from an adherent of Verwoerd’s, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised!
I deal in facts, such as the deadly, factual numbers at Cuito, and also the deadly fact that the Cuban commander was executed afterwards, speak for themselves.
So really; you’re peddling complete bollocks here and any further debate with somebody who is so dishonest, is pointless. Rather go join the EFF’s site or the Flat Earth Society.
Actually you cherry-pick facts that suit your narrative and flatly ignore the bigger picture: “Due to the international arms embargo since 1977, South Africa’s aging air force was outclassed by sophisticated Soviet-supplied air defence systems and air-strike capabilities fielded by the Cubans and Angolans and it was unable to uphold the air supremacy it had enjoyed for years; its loss in turn proved to be critical to the outcome of the battle on the ground.”
Not my words, but those of historians Cock and Nathan in their detailed analysis of the war, the battle and its aftermath. You’ve now skipped over my rebuttal to your ridiculous assertion of the SADF as the world’s 4th strongest army, ignored my rebuttal to your strawman attempts at twisting what I said about Germany and finally have proven that your ‘view’ of the war in Angola is flawed, to put it mildly and out of step with cold, hard, analysis by independent observers. I’ll draw a line under this now and hope you find solace in tilting at other windmills.
Thought provoking article that should be read by most South Africans. Pity that the people that are most affected cannot read for understanding.
The one element missing is a direct deduction that the current ruling party and its policies are the reason for the state of affairs.
Power Corrupts – Take back Power
Education Jobs Security for All
If the ANC does to you what the Apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the Apartheid government – Apparently attributed to Mandela
Lets be very cautious about what we learn from Rwanda, our twin. To clear the air with a genocidal flush is not to be recommended.
It’s what they have managed to achieve since the genocide that South Africa can learn a lot of very prominent lessons from. They might not have “democracy”, but that doesn’t seem to be getting in the way too much in terms of getting on with the business of rebuilding and developing a nation
This statement is mind blowing:-
“the new dispensation has delivered for the elite, but has failed the black majority and coloureds as groups. Whites and Indian South Africans have progressed significantly during this period.”
The new dispensation has delivered for NOBODY. Whites and Indians have done it themselves, while blacks and coloureds expect the government to support them. Indians were brought to SA as unskilled, uneducated labourers. They progressed by their own efforts, not depending on government help.
Black parents need to take responsibility for children they have to ensure they are educated to give them a better chance in life. The stats speak for themselves, with the majority of black children in one parent families. It is the same situation in USA, why is this ?
Thank you, Robert, my thoughts, exactly.
Indeed. There is a difference between “Give me a job” and “I want to work”. It is attitude that matters. And whether one wants to gain weight while sitting in the chair that comes with the job or wants to add value through doing real hard work.
Absolutely correct. It reminds me of a issue I had, as manager on one of the ESKOM power stations, in 2018, where I reprimanded a (black) worker, for standing around, doing nothing. I told him to get back to work. His response was “I don’t need to work, I’ve got a job” meaning, that he is employed, get’s paid, and don’t need to work. We couldn’t do much, as if we put pressure on these workers, they would go to HR, claim “racism”, and we would get fired…difficult situation
Good lord. Depressing.
Fair comment
Whites and Indians have progressed DESPITE the new dispensation, not through it or because of it; they have had to work, study, and just plain try harder to survive. Blacks and coloureds have not, maybe because they expected to benefit and they took their feet off the pedal. Remember the car hire company advert from years ago. We’re number two, we try harder!
Agreed 100%
Exactly. The fact that the graduate ratios changed from 1:1.2 to 1:6 (black/white) is a direct result of ANC policy to eradicate whites out of the working economy. Where whites could previously compete in all sectors, huge swarthes of the economy were now denied them by BEE (in the same way that Apartheid did to Blacks) and they responded by pushing higher education of their own children (witness the boom in private education) with the objective of giving more of them the ability to compete at the higher levels-or emigrate. The author acknowledges that we have both resources and skills, but they will always be vastly skewed with this apartheid mentality which prevails in current government policy.
The answer is not to take away from those who have, but to make the cake bigger so that more can share. Sound economic policies can increase investment and make the cake bigger.
I agree with your bigger cake for our present economic dispensation, but now we have a pack of stealthy rats who eat the cake at night while everyone sleeps. Now we only have crumbs left, and everyone still wants their cake. So now we all know what will happen if someone bakes more cake.
It beggars belief that 30 years in government there has been little to no planning to build the nation , either through lack of capability and experience or , the focus has been on self enrichment of the few, under the guise of racist concepts like BBBEE , Transformation , redistribution etc. I suspect the answer is a combination . You don’t solve societal issues by robbing the haves and giving to the have nots, and making false promises to garner votes. Using healthcare or education as an example . 1- Get the infrastructure in place first ( clinics / hospitals / schools / universities ) NOT by giving inflated tenders to buddies , but get value for money high quality facilities . 2. Populate these with the highest caliber staff that you pay well . Only those with competence ( demonstrated ability and experience ) and character ( honesty and integrity ) need apply – NOT incompetent , dishonest buddies. 3. Government to be as small as possible and provide safety , security , water , sanitation and power and use tax payers money wisely then leave all else to the citizens to run . 4. Stop viewing society. through the lens of history and dividing the nation along racial lines that builds animosity 5.Have a weekly newspaper in all languages that explains basic concepts honestly – e.g If a business does R 100 million in sales , then. pays suppliers R 50 Million , then salaries , wages , offices costs of R 30 million what is left is 20 Million of which government gets R 5.6 million in tax so there is R 14.6 million left that is used to keep the business running and possibly pay a divided to shareholders for lending their money to the business to get it started. The popular belief is the ‘ rich whites ‘ take all the money , while the poor blacks suffer ‘ . I am 67 and only one of my friends can be considered rich but the rest are middle class and battling each month to pay the monthy costs – . Explain clearly that salaries are based on the number of people with the skills and experience to perform the function vs the need for such people in society – If you are the only doctor with more patients than you can attend to you can charge as much as you want – this is the way the world works and it has nothing to do with racial groupings. In conclusion – Rather choose the freedom of a humble life vs the slavery of extravagance – all the best for 2024 to everyone and lets follow the example of the Springbok team ( work together as a nation and win for all )
This is second piece I have read on the thoughts of Pali Lehohla and he is, without a doubt, an astute man who speaks a lot of hard to stomach truths, based on statistics.
In general I agree with his thoughts and views but I do find two points in this second piece that do no “sit well” with me. I must also hasten to add that it is very easy to misunderstand true meaning or intention in one way communication, such as a written piece.
That said I do not believe Whites or Indians have “benefited” from Govt policies. I believe they have been disadvantaged by legislation and yet made the best of the situation. In fact, I don’t believe anyone, other than a select few, have benefited from Govt policies. All that legislation and deployment has done is enrich a small minority.
My second thought would be to be hesitant to “appear” to be supportive of the Rwandan tragedy – however I am sure that my interpretation here is incorrect.
In all, thank you for an excellent article that in may ways says what many think but do not say.
Thanks for the nuanced comment. Can be all too rare around here.
When you say the new SA has failed, you actually mean the current ANC government, nothing the new SA. The ANC had 30 years and whst are the statistics on schools, jobs, Healthcare and housing? Where there has been some progress, how much input has there been from the private sector?
When you say whites are thriving, you use a dictionary example of racism which is to assume one thing for a group based on ethnicity. On that point, you are not accurate. The middle class backbone of our economy is heaving under high costs of running companies because our ports and industries have grinded to a crawl because there is no capacity. Our municipalities are bankrupt from no capacity and corruption. I think to say that South Africa did this is a gross misrepresentation of most citizens who have wished for a better world for all of us. The ANC broke the collective heart of our New South Africa when it chose self enrichment over empowerment to the people.
Very well said, Wendy!!
I just wrote a long comment as to the reasons for this Pig trough culture, cultivated by the ANC using it’s defunct communist soviet policies of seeing “the west “ as enemy, its destruction of the education system and seeing private enterprise [ tax money] as the enemy while depending on it to hail their achievements and provide the loot to steal for their self enrichment. But I fear that the endless comments of this nature on this DM platform, apart from allowing us to let off steam, are a waste of time. Because we are preaching to the converted. How many rural people read the DM and have computers/ smartphones to express themselves while marching off to vote for the party that provides their R300 a month to barely survive on ?
And that’s it exactly. Words, lies as promises and feeding the fires of blaming apartheid work as a strategy for election. Once elected it’s a feeding frenzy for 5 years until the next annoying cycle of having to get elected to rinse repeat begins. It is surprising that so few are killed for political office and it is evident that politicians have entirely too much power and are too well paid for things to change via the ballot box.
It is not by chance that healthy people live longer and have a better life. It takes knowledge, discipline and willpower to lead a healthy, ethical life.
The same ingredients are required to have a healthy, ethical
society.
Our biggest problem is that our voting populace still believe political partie’s promises. Any party. We as South Africans have alwas had the ability to pick up the slack where the government failed us. And the current democratic one has been a spectacular failure for 30 years. For everyone. So kick them out and stop believing what any of them says. Keep them responsible for what happens and work together. The statistics gives a view of what happened but not really the human side of why! And that is much more of a legacy of a government not building up schools, healthcare etc.
Excuse me, Dr Lohohla, but did you say ‘politics must pause’, and we must not have an election? Are you suggesting a subversion of the constitution, and a suspension of the only peaceful means of addressing the cancer in our society ie by voting to cut out the malignant tumour? How do you suggest we get rid of the ANC? By revolution? Not a good idea.
he is suggesting a Government of National Unity, I think. as in the GNU at the dawn of our new democracy. actually not a bad idea, provided the ANC does not call the shots, and the new Pres is non-alligned. That would be truly revolutionary.
You may be right Carsten, but why did he not say that then? It looks like we are heading for a coalition government after the elections, but unfortunately most likely one between the ANC and EFF. God help us. Every sane person needs to campaign vigorously for one of the MPC parties.
You may be right Carsten, but why did he not say that then? It looks like we are heading for a coalition government after the elections, but unfortunately most likely one between the ANC and EFF. God help us. Every sane person needs to campaign vigorously for one of the MPC parties.
These stats are meaningless – you can’t compare the percentage of employment in different race groups when the overall number of individuals in each race group is vastly different. If you run the numbers purely on actual jobs, you will find a far less political result.
Secondly, population growth across race groups is also different over 30 years.
Perhaps the following from Statistics SA will throw some light on the issue:
“A total of 1 003 307 births were registered in South Africa in 2020. Of these, 899 303 (89,6%) were births that occurred and were registered in 2020 (current birth registrations), while 104 004 (10,4%) were births that occurred in the previous years but were registered in 2020. A total of 899 303 children were born in 2020. There were 453 165 males and 446 138 female births.
Of note were the number of teenage mothers. A total of 33 899 births occurred to mothers aged 17 years and younger. Over 600 children aged 10-13 years (including late birth registrations) gave birth, of these, 499 gave birth in 2020. Early pregnancy and motherhood creates a greater risk in terms of maternal complications resulting in low survival rates of babies and forces many girls to prematurely take on adult role which they are not emotionally or physically prepared for.”
It is the poor standard of education and absurdly low pass percentages that leads to the majority of Black Students to have a Matric that is worthless and makes them unhireable for a majority of jobs. This is the legacy of the the ANC’s education poloicies
The ‘pigsty’ is caused by the very ANC he supports & is deployed by.
The elephant in the room preventing us moving forward to a Bolivia or Rwanda is the self-same ANC with their corrupt tendencies.
How does Mr Lehola propose we deal with the ANC & their corrupt nature, incompetent cadre deployment & their nature of BBBEE elites?
None of this he addressed, instead swinging a stick at whites/indians to blame again.
There are quite a few things I question in this article, primarily the statistics which when based on percentages tend to heavily distort facts. As one example, over 600000 whites have left South Africa in the last 20 years, reducing the percentages. In contrast the black population has grown from 35 million to 49 million in the same time.
You are correct that in the black population group there are less skill sets available and education is the key, yet it is the ANC politicians (sending their kids to private schools) that have dropped the ball on this for over 25 years. The NSFAS is barely 5 years old & as we have just found out is already riddled with corruption in addition to absolute incompetence.
People don’t like mentioning having less kids to have a bit more wealth, but it remains a fact, and I see no government policies trying to slow any of this down.
Energy, transport, health & education, all the main arteries needed to sustain a country have been compromised, damaged or even nearly destroyed by a small number of connected people (should we look at those ethnic demographics?)
So what exactly is the aim of writing such an article, that compares the different demographics but ignores or downplays key factors that influence them? A solution can only be found if we acknowledge that these race based comparisons can at best signal where problems need to be addressed, but surely the solutions in context of what the ANC has done to this country lie elsewhere!
I’m not clear why we fixate on graduate degrees like we do. In China under 15% of the population has degrees, India half that.
More STEM degrees are needed in the economy, not more degrees. Increasing our already bloated and overpaid public service with more political science, history and philosophy graduates will achieve nothing.
I agree , and all politicians should have had a job in the private sector . Then maybe they will understand the concept of productivity and value for money.
Hogwash
The statistics are worrying and this is going to cause a catastrophe in our community and country as a nation. This is the root cause of the problem. Politicians fighting for elections. The government must take responsibility for their actions of not being able to uplift the poor citizens of the country.
They have a new plan. They’re asking members to pray for their renewal.
South Africa didn’t fail blacks. The anc did that all by themselves.
As did the apartheid regime before that and the British before that. South Africa has had centuries of lamentable government, with the current lot combining almost every vice of the previous regimes into a cocktail of catastrophe!
Just two thoughts.
Concerning the unmarried mothers, fathers. Perhaps the gap can be accounted for by men not knowing they are fathers. It depends how the question was asked. As a check the mothers should be asked if they know who the father is or if the father knows he is a biological father.
The second point is the massive growth in black numbers versus the decline in white and Indian numbers. So a better measurement would be to use actual numbers or percentages of the total numbers i.e. 30 years ago 25% of graduates were black versus 50% now or whatever the actual numbers are.
I wonder why Chris Makhaye used
“The new SA has failed blacks and coloureds while the elite thrive” rather than
“The ANC has failed blacks and coloureds while whites thrived in spite of BEEE”
“The new SA has failed blacks and coloureds while the elite thrive, and elections won’t fix it”
Twaddle. Elections are exactly how you fix it but ours have been used by dimwits to repeatedly hire thieves and charlatans. There’s no question about who was responsible for hiring the Nats for 40 years and who therefore bears responsibility for their actions. The ANC didn’t hire themselves so the people who did are responsible for theirs. The SA electorate has exactly the government they want and deserve and therefore should proudly own the resulting outcomes. Suspect it will be easier to blame Jan van Riebeek though so I won’t hold my breath.
One of the most difficult things to do is to learn from others:
– The Australian Government pays the university fees for all Australian students, who then pay back a portion through tax when they start working
– All Technical Training Colleges were closed down by Minister Kadar Asmal, hence the shortage of many skills.
– All Education Colleges were also closed down, hence the looming shortage of teachers.
– Dr Lehola does not include the informal sector which employs thousands (many not paying tax) in his statistics.
– Many young women fall pregnant deliberately so as to have some income through the child grant.
– Singapore, once as ‘backward’ as SA, runs on MPH – Meritocracy – you must be able to do your job, Pragmatism – it is a sensible thing to do? and Honesty – if you cheat you go to goal.
The problem is not that the party only failed blacks and coloureds. The party has failed itself, it’s founding principles and every single South African. Heartbreaking
B-BBEE and affirmative action should be judged on achievement of goals. Clearly these policies are not working so we need a fresh approach.
Policies to end inequality do not start from trying to equalise the number of billionaires.
There are two components to the problem:
1. too few skills especially among the unemployed
2. investment strike – driven in part by the shortage of skills and also by no faith in state institutions
A top-down approach (should we call it trickle-down?) has clearly failed. Grassroots-up – starting with doing everything possible to improve educational outcomes and to ensure that basic services and infrastructure work – will be much more effective.
Better education will make better-paid jobs more accessible. Working basic services and infrastructure will do much to end the investment strike. We need to get both of these problems under control to make real progress on ending inequality.
We have trillions of rand sitting in pension funds that fund managers would be happy to spend on sound investments. Would they e.g. invest in improving Eskom’s productive capacity? Of course not, that would be nuts. Unless we fix the core problems of governance, corruption and cronyism. Similar logic applies to many other areas of job creation.
“whites and Indians have benefited economically and educationally from the post-apartheid-era dispensation, as evidenced by their sustained progression on these fronts”
This is racist. It is also rubbish as no hardworking honest people are doing as well as they should and would be in a functioning state.
I’m often taken aback by the in-depth analyses of South African issues, appearing meticulously studied and relying on academic and statistical facts. However, these analyses often seem disconnected from the realities on the ground. Such “intellectual” approaches initially generate an impression of trustworthiness, projecting an illusion of reliability. Yet, from my perspective, many of these approaches become overly immersed in scrutinising the problems and their solutions, hindering authors from recognising the apparent reasons and their resolutions. Allow me to explain this statement.
The ANC has spent 29 years enacting labour laws that significantly impede and make it perilous for private employers to hire people. This is the primary cause behind our staggering 42.4% unemployment rate (inclusive of those who have given up seeking employment), a rate not only surpassing that of any comparable developing economy worldwide but exponentially exceeding it. The ANC’s labour laws have rendered employment conditions exorbitantly costly, intricate, bureaucratic, and fraught with risk, dissuading companies from hiring and subsequently stunting expansion. Some companies even relocate offshore or opt not to initiate operations here. A vast number of white households ceased employing domestic workers, who were predominantly blacks. In contrast, the United States’ historic economic success and innovativeness over the past two centuries stem from the ease of employment. A hypothetical businessman concisely clarifies why unemployment is so low in America: “You’re fired!” Simplified termination facilitates increased hiring, empowering companies to retain and cultivate the majority of honest, diligent, and hardworking employees while dismissing only the dishonest, incompetent, or indolent individuals. Under the ANC’s labour laws, establishing large-scale businesses and factories employing substantial workforces has become precarious. Not surprisingly, the very constitutional measures – the labour laws – which the ANC implements to safeguard employees have paradoxically become one of the major reasons for such a dire employment situation in South Africa.
Let’s examine the incentives for investors. Would you consider launching a major enterprise in South Africa? In the USA, such endeavors are encouraged and supported. However, in South Africa, the scenario is starkly different. To initiate a new company here, you must immediately yield 30% ownership to a BBBEE (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment) partner, one who aligns with specific racial criteria and holds particular political affiliations. BBBEE compliance involves intricate procedures, including opaque “BEE scorecards,” often requiring expensive legal expertise to ensure adherence. The penalties for non-compliance are severe. In September 2016, Cyril Ramaphosa, then South Africa’s Deputy President, issued a stark warning, stating that those guilty of BEE fronting could face a decade-long imprisonment. His tone was menacing, aiming to alert potential investors to the perils of doing business in South Africa. Fronting, as described, refers to appointing a highly talented yet unqualified and unknown Black individual, lacking connections to the influential circles within the ANC, to a senior corporate position. Identifying talent within a humble worker and elevating them to a high-ranking role might lead to serious legal repercussions. Therefore, should you establish a substantial business in South Africa, employing a substantial workforce, and if some labour inspector or investigative journalist discovers that one of your black executives originated from a humble, working-class background, it could result in a ten-year prison sentence.
Additionally, every business owner, akin to all entrepreneurs globally, desires to procure top-notch business equipment, machine tools, materials, and components – at competitive prices, sourcing them directly from suppliers. However, in South Africa, this freedom is curtailed. Here, you are obliged to purchase substandard goods at inflated prices through a BEE intermediary who accrues substantial profits. The essence of BEE seems to be further enriching the affluent allies of the ANC while undermining the welfare of the less privileged. Public hospitals, for example, are obliged to buy medical equipment that is often sub-standard at very high prices through a BEE contractor. Public (tax payers) money is squandered and the poor patients at the hospital suffer but the BEE middleman does splendidly. I am sure this is why the ANC is so keen on the NHI: it will provide opportunities for looting on an enormous scale. Deployed cadres at the NHI hospitals will make millions, BEE contractors millions more. Poor, sick black people will die, but that is of no consequence to the ANC. Any entrepreneur would refuse to operate under these conditions, Investing and opening businesses and factories in South Africa poses a real risk to investors.
The ANC’s actions over the past 29 years have led to the de-industrialization of South Africa, reversing the significant industrial progress made during apartheid. Smelters were closed down, manufacturing declined, the textile industry suffered severe setbacks, major mining corporations exited the country, and industrial firms continue to depart from the JSE. The deterioration of our once-reliable electricity supply and the breakdown of our railways have hastened the process of deindustrialization, all attributed to ANC policies. Even if Elon Musk had intended to establish industrial initiatives here, prevailing constraints may have prohibited him from doing so. As a case in point, Elon Musk expressed interest in implementing his Starlink communications network in South Africa. However, he faced the stipulation to operate under a BEE entity, a condition he declined to comply with. Consequently, this refusal means South Africa has once again missed out on the potential benefits that the Starlink initiative could have contributed to our economy.
Additionally, many prominent capitalists tend to conform to prevalent ideologies, even if they are nonsensical or detrimental, showcasing political timidity in the face of such situations.
Many more obvious factors that contribute to the precarious unemployment in South Africa, which are solely and directly the result of ANC restrictive economical and racial laws, can be mentioned.
“In the South African context, we have to ask: When will blacks and coloureds achieve as high a proportion of 65% as skilled workforce like their white counterparts and what tools [will] we need to use to achieve it and over what period of time?”
This question carries an undertone reminiscent of familiar narratives about inequality, historical disadvantages, and the idea of white privilege, or similar rhetorical notions. However, it’s worth noting that within a period of 33 years, from South Africa’s independence in 1961 until 1994, the whites built a remarkable country and thriving economy. Despite having suffered and risen from the hardships under the oppressive British colonial empire, they achieved significant progress and accomplishments which compared South Africa to any first-world country. During the apartheid era, the government managed to sustain economic growth, even amid the challenges of facing 301 global sanctions from 1985 to 1993. Contrarywise, the African National Congress (ANC) inherited a strong and prosperous economy from the previous administration, further amplified by the abundant opportunities following from the removal of all those sanctions. South Africa rapidly became an investor’s paradise, resulting in a massive capital influx into our economy.
The essential question remains: “Why could the ANC not utilize these considerable advantages and numerous post-apartheid opportunities?”
The “new south africa” is covered by the expression IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND THE ONE EYED MAN IS KING. This has been true for ALL OF AFRICA
People need jobs.
This author does not seem to like elections – wanted the 2024 elections cancelled to first have talks. As a statistician he’d appreciate that one needs to know which party at the table speaks for what part of the population when planning negotiations.
W
To understand the disparity one needs to address black culture.
White and Indian cultures amongst others look to education and inter generational wealth progression / no short cuts.
Ask yourself why there are no wells in sub Saharan Africa and you will understand why, in a post modern world, black South African culture is not conducive to building a competitive economy.
Add racist BEE laws that harms the economy in a multitude of ways and shocking public education, and the employment stats can be understood.
Get the narrative right, educate and free the economy of talent and energy sapping laws and watch this country thrive and poor peoples lives improve over the next 50 and more years
The excellent analysis given by Dr Lehohla deserves serious consideration and concrete action. It is my prayer that this will happen.
Excellent piece ANC government ought to take stock from.