FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald says Ramaphosa recently told Sanef that Covid-19 also offers the country the opportunity to get rid of the apartheid and colonial remnants of the economy. He wants to know how Ramaphosa plans it because the past cannot be blamed for the future failure of the economy. Groenewald also wants to know if this is not the right time to get rid of policies like black economic empowerment.
Groenewald says that a United Nations official also said that the expropriation of land without compensation is devastating for the country.
Ramaphosa says that black economic empowerment policies of the government should be strengthened instead. “We need to ensure that black people who were excluded under apartheid and colonial rule from being excluded from the economy in their own country can participate in the economy. We cannot afford an economy that still excludes the majority.
I said our economy is a damaged one because it doesn’t use all the resources at its disposal sufficiently to power it, it’s like operating a 12-cylinder vehicle on only four cylinders, we can’t – the only way we can is to make black people part of the economy, they are waiting for it to be excluded in the past. We cannot continue with situations where the majority are still excluded from economics. It is shameful that we still have such a situation. Equal employment will also continue.