Former Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan has urged South Africans to either stop corruption or fight for scraps.
He was speaking at the inaugural annual Thought Laboratory held at The Establishment in Alex Mall where he was the keynote guest speaker.
Addressing the audience on how the country can attain radical economic transformation, Gordhan said it would be possible only if corruption in government and the private sector are dealt with head-on. “The first step [is] to fight the rot [whether it is bad practices in government and private sectors], otherwise we will get no transformation,” Gordhan said.
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He said transformation was a big issue in the country, but there were bigger structural transformation issues that impact millions of people.
“The only thing that matters is you! The 2008/9 recession caused the country to lose billions of rand, ultimately causing the middle and lower class citizens to suffer.” He said that globalisation also resulted in a huge amount of damage being done to build the middle class in developed countries.
Gordhan said that transformation needs to benefit the poor and non-asset owners in order to eradicate poverty. “When we talk about economic transformation, it is not about the theory and the ideology that underpin it. Economics and politics are ultimately about the people; it is about every single person who must experience the benefits of change.”
Although a lot of jobs were created in the past few years, he said the rate of unemployment remained high and that economic exclusion played a role.
He said new thinking and strategies need to be incorporated in order to reach this phenomenon we call transformation.
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“One of the factors [that are] standing in the way of transformation is that old challenges need to be dealt with in a new way. We need to be open to a variety of thinking from different people so that we can start making progress.
“Let us not label people because they hold different opinions than us.”
He said government plays an important part in the process of change and a lot of South Africans wanted a government that has integrity and the honesty that past leaders left as a legacy.
He urged leaders to stop being greedy because this leads to disturbances in change. “If you have the desire to pocket a portion of the money that should be used to better the country, the desire will grow bigger and bigger in the future,” Gordhan said.
The second part of the Thought Laboratory included a debate between panel experts on factors that stand in the way of transformation and how the country can get past them. The panel included economist, Xhanti Payi, Wits University’s associate professor, Ivor Chipkin and the South African Institute of Race Relations, Gwen Ngwenya.
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Ngwenya said that because corruption is found everywhere, tackling it is important. “It makes it a less safe environment for those who want to engage in corrupt activities to do so, because of the threat that there are people who are vigilant and they are being watched,” Ngwenya said.
However, she said that whistleblowers should always think of their safety first and request to remain anonymous. “I think it is possible to protect the identity of the whistleblower and many companies do protect their informants.
“I would encourage that companies have an internal ombudsman, someone who will be a safe haven for people to report corruption to.”
The Thought Laboratory was an initiative of financial services company ASI. It is aimed at engaging with citizens about issues that affect them directly.
