BuaNews (Tshwane)
Matome Sebelebele
7 March 2004
Pretoria — President Thabo Mbeki says the country's economy needs Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) to further level the playing fields while unleashing and broadening the country's wealth to reflect the "totality" of the nation.
"Through Black Economic Empowerment, we are able to build bridges across our divided society and move away from the polarised nation of the past, where the economic leadership of this country was mainly in the hands of whites with negligible participation by blacks," he said.
"We have already seen that through Black Economic Empowerment, our country is able to unleash the potential of all our people while at the same time broadening and deepening leadership in the economic sphere and creating the much-needed entrepreneurial class that reflects the totality of the South African people," he affirmed.
The President was speaking at the 10th anniversary of the Enterprise Development Forum in Johannesburg, last night (Saturday).
He said government had, since 1994, implemented various strategies to bring on board the country's economy, blacks, women and people with disabilities to play "a central role" in the economy.
However, challenges remain to empower many black business leaders and managers who still require training and the necessary technical skills to "run our economy".
"It is in this context that there is no question that we need Black Economic Empowerment because this is one of the critical foundations of our democracy and through the distribution of economic power and assets we are better able to create a more representative society," the President said.
The country's economy ought to be de-racialised to create a "non-racial and non-sexist democracy," he said.
"This is particularly important given the fact that, 10 years after our democracy, our country still experiences high levels of racial and class inequalities, especially in the distribution of and access to wealth, income, skills and employment."
The result is that today, blacks in general, still constitute the poor and occupy the lowest rung in our social strata and whites, in general, constitute the rich and inhabit the elevated strata of society, he elaborated.
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