Tutu Foundation calls on government to lead in effecting societal reconciliation

The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation has called on the SA government to take charge and lead in the reconciliation front.

It said the state should demonstrate a will and capacity to end corruption, maladministration and improve service delivery, as citizens’ patience is running out Reconciliation risked total collapse should the state not urgently attend to land redress and poverty and unemployment.

The South African government is running out of time to regain its integrity and lead in the national reconciliation project for the benefit of all, said the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.

In its statement marking Reconciliation Day, the foundation said expressions of racial rhetoric and posturing, such as the protests at Cape Town’s Brackenfell and Senekal, Free State undermine reconciliation processes.

“The majority of South Africans do not hold extreme views. They responded with the magnanimity the country’s political settlement asked of them, and have since relatively patiently awaited the construction of a fairer, sustainable society. But their patience is running out,” the foundation said.

“The state must take the lead in effecting societal reconciliation through transformation. It must create the framework and provide the materials for civil society to be able to contribute meaningfully to weaving a compassionate and inclusive fabric of common cause for a united nation.

“This is the trajectory the overwhelming majority of citizens bought into under the presidency of the late Nelson Mandela.”

To regain the nation’s confidence in it, the foundation says the State must demonstrate the will and capacity to do away with corruption, maladministration inequality, and improve service delivery.

On land redress and the underperforming economy, the foundation said progress lacked behind due to political interests being placed above the interests of the people.

Millions of people, the majority of whom are black, lived in squalor and abject poverty.

“There has been no freedom dividend for them in terms of the quality of their lives – rapid urbanisation has arguably made things harder. To an economy already on its knees at the beginning of the year, coronavirus effectively delivered a coup de grace.

“Then, to rub salt into these wounds, adding to the daily reminder of integrity failures provided by the Zondo Commission, came revelations that funds set aside to defend South Africans against the pandemic had been looted.”

“You can’t buy integrity or reconciliation off the shelf. They require investment and maintenance – and time is rapidly running out,” it said.

Reconciliation Day is observed on December 16.

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