Transformation To Benefit All South Africans

“We want the country to move forward. We want to get rid of the three challenges that face us – poverty, inequality and unemployment, and these are the critical challenges. If we do not resolve them, we have not resolved the issue of freedom.”

As government intensifies efforts to address persisting levels of poverty and narrow the inequality gap, it will need to “interrupt” economic activity to benefit the masses, says President Jacob Zuma. In an interview with the SABC/The New Age breakfast briefing after this State of the Nation Address (SoNA), a speech in which the President spoke at length about the need to implement radical socio-economic trans- formation so that the majority of South Africans can participate in the economy, he once again stressed the urgent need to transform the economy. “People will tell you that the gap between the poor and the rich is widening. Now, that is not the direction we want to take. “We want the country to move forward.

We want to get rid of the three challenges that face us – poverty, inequality and unemployment, and these are the critical challenges. If we do not resolve them, we have not resolved the issue of freedom,” he acknowledged.

Time for change

He pointed out that the steps government takes to achieve prosperity p had become an important issue.

“When you talk about radical economic transformation, which h must be social economy, we are saying: ‘What is it that we can do to interrupt the flow of [economic activity]’? We have got monopoly capital in this country.