30 years ‘too long’ for SA to still be blaming apartheid

South Africa must stop blaming apartheid and start addressing its poor productivity and high consumerism if it is to grow economically, experts have said.

While the apartheid legacy had a devastating impact on the economy, 30 years is too long for the country to be still harping on the problem. Many countries in the global south experienced worse poverty than South Africa, but they managed to pull themselves out of their poverty sinkholes.

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Prof Dirk Kotzé from the University of South Africa said the country should learn from Singapore, one of the “Asian tigers” which emerged from the worst poverty to become one of the top economies in the world.

Apartheid legacy: SA must learn from others

South Africa needed to ask itself what effort and time was needed for it to get out of its current situation.

“Singapore is big, comparable to China, the US, Russia, Germany or France, or those countries, but they developed into a major economic power in the world.

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“They started 30 to 40 years ago as an absolutely poverty-stricken island nation and developed because of very strong leadership by their Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.”

The same applied to South Korea, with an economy below that of Ghana in 1960, but which today is one of the main producers of electronics, information and communications technology products and vehicles, and became a well-established economy.

Japan’s economy was almost on its knees after World War II in 1945, but 40 years later had become the world’s third-biggest economy.

“So it looks like in 30 to 40 years, a country can go from completely underdeveloped to become among the biggest economies in the world. I think this is what we should use as a yardstick,” Kotzé said.

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South Africa was not yet in the top 20, but certainly had the potential to get there, to be a fully fledge member of the G20 and not be just an invited member.

Productivity over consumerism

Another analyst, Dr Levy Ndou from the Tshwane University of Technology, said South Africa should prioritise productivity over consumerism to grow economically.

“Africans are consumers, they produce nothing,” Ndou said.

The country should address productivity and be creative with the resources it had.

“What are we doing about the resources that we have as a nation? We need to address them,” he said.

“If our mangoes are making a difference in Europe, why can’t they make a difference for us here in the country?”

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Ndou emphasised the need for education that was focused on the needs of the economy.

“That is why we had the recent Brics Summit, which focused on issues of development and encouraging countries to do things in a manner that grows the economy,” Ndou said.

To grow its economy, South Africa should look to internal and external factors such as proper use of resources and intensify production.

– ericn@citizen.co.za