Jacob Dlamini
24 March 2003
Johannesburg — GOVERNMENT has added its voice to the truth commission's call for business to do more to pay for apartheid wrongs.
This is likely to bolster a growing church-led campaign for reparation for the estimated 20000 people identified by the commission as being in need of compensation for suffering gross human rights violations under apartheid rule.
However, the reparation campaign could be complicated by the commission's finding that "virtually every black South African can be said to be a victim of human rights abuse", meaning more people are likely to qualify for compensation.
Justice ministry spokesman Paul Setsetse said yesterday the payment of reparation to victims of apartheid should not be the sole responsibility of the state.
"The business community must also play a role in the payment of reparation.
"This is not the responsibility of government alone, it is the responsibility of all South Africans."
A voluntary business trust set up to raise money for reparation has received about R800m from the private sector more than three years after it was set up.
In a report handed to President Thabo Mbeki by truth commission head Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Friday, the body called for the payment of reparation to victims of the apartheid dispensation.
The commission said this could take the form of a wealth tax, a once-off levy on corporate earnings, a surcharge on company profit or a donation of a percentage of a company's market capitalisation to a trust for victims. Tutu said victims had waited too long for reparation.
"We have a legal but, more importantly, a moral obligation to pay reparation," he said.
Mbeki said: "We will study the report and respond to its recommendations as quickly as possible. This includes the matter of financial reparation."
Justice Minister Penuell Maduna said on Friday he had been instructed by the cabinet to call a meeting involving government and civil society to discuss the reparation.
Setsetse said the instruction was part of government's effort to make South Africans share responsibility for redressing the wrongs of the past and to commit to national reconciliation. Government wanted to consult widely before taking a decision on the issue. "We just want to make sure that citizens agree with the decision we take."
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