South Africa still grapples with inequality: President

JOHANNESBURG

Inequality remains high in South Africa 26 years after the apartheid, a cruel racial regime that oppressed black South Africans, the country’s president said in his Freedom Day message on Monday.

Cyril Ramaphosa said South Africa’s past devastating legacy of apartheid still runs deep in the nation with poverty and inequality continuing to follow it.

“Some people have been able to endure the coronavirus lockdown in a comfortable home with a fully stocked fridge, with private medical care and online learning for their children,” the president said. However, he added, millions of others are struggling to survive due to the lockdown.

South Africans are currently staying home so as to curb the spread of COVID-19 that has so far infected 4,546 people and killed 87.

Much of the wealth in South Africa is still owned by white South Africans two decades after the end of apartheid. A government survey published last year, found that white South Africans earned more than four times as much as blacks.

“A child born to parents of means has a comfortable home, is fed and sheltered, receives a good education and has good prospects for a prosperous life,” Ramaphosa said, adding that “for a poor child, every day of life can be a struggle for shelter, for food and for opportunity,”

He said this is the greatest form of injustice and a stain on South Africa’s conscience, and added now is the time to actively work to build a fair and just country.

“In the South Africa that we all want, no man, woman or child will go hungry, because they will have the means to earn an income, and our social assistance programmes will be matched by efforts to enable communities to grow their own food,” the president added.