SA’s wealth gap an indictment for the poor

It is a  sad indictment of our country that South Africa has managed to top the world in one global ranking: We are, according to the latest World  Bank report,  the most unequal country on the planet, judging by the gap between rich and poor.

The World Bank says we are the worst out of 164  countries ranked  –  and that inequality has increased since the end of apartheid in 1994. There are a number of reasons for this. The accelerating wage gap has been the main reason for the growing gulf between rich and poor. 

In some ways,  South  Africa has been no different from the rest of the capitalist world,  where the pay packets of chief executive officers  (CEOs)  are obscenely higher than those of the lowest-paid employees…the very people which help companies generate profits in the first place. 

True, some CEOs do dramatically increase the value of companies and these days some of those companies are owned by pension funds and trade union investment arms – which does spread the wealth around.

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However,  many companies’  chiefs continue to earn huge salaries despite poor performance. Then there is the reality that South Africa has been hit by the financial shocks which badly damaged the rest of the world. Also, a fact is that millions of economic migrants have flooded this country, putting a huge strain on government-delivered services.

Yet,  undoubtedly,  the fact that an estimated  R1.5  trillion disappeared through the state capture looting   – and that corruption remains the main characteristic of our ANC government – means the people at the bottom of society’s pyramid got poorer and poorer as jobs dried up because of the looting. 

If only the chickens of the ANC’s theft which are now coming home to roost were real…then our starving people would have full stomachs for years,  even decades, to come.