By Golden Guvamatanga

THERE is a growing chorus by South Africans for their government to take the Zimbabwean route to empower its citizens.
A few years ago when the Zimbabwe Government found itself entangled in a situation where the economy favoured a few white minority while the majority wallowed in perpetual poverty, it embarked on a land redistribution programme that has now culminated in the ongoing indigenisation drive.
There are striking similarities to the situation that Zimbabwe was in over a decade ago and where South Africa stands today.
From quenching land hungry South Africans’ thirst to taking the economy back to the majority, the government needs to move swiftly to meet these challenges; the challenges confronting the South African Government are enormous.
According to a report by Reuters in 2012, South Africa’s black majority directly owns less than 10 percent of the Johannesburg Stock Market.
This is evidence that the economy remains firmly in the hands of whites nearly two decades after the end of apartheid.
“In 2006, 70 percent of South Africa’s land was still owned by whites,” reads a Wikipedia report in part.
“This is despite the promises of the African National Congress (ANC) to redistribute 30 percent of the land from whites to blacks.
“Whites hold much of South Africa’s land, secured through freehold type regimes.
“More than one-third of the population occupies 13 percent of the land, often in insecure or secondary ways.”
Last year, South African President, Jacob Zuma told a major policy meeting of his ruling ANC party that the economy is still mostly under the control of whites who held power under apartheid and the government needs to take more drastic steps to make sure the black majority can benefit from its wealth.
But there has been a feeling by some political figures in South Africa that President Zuma’s administration is doing little or nothing to address these imbalances.
“Using the national poverty line of US$43 per month (in current prices), 47 percent of South Africans remain poor,” another study revealed last year.
“In 1994, this figure was 45,6 percent.
“More jarring, the country’s unemployment rate is 25,4 percent, while the Gini Coeffient, which measures inequality, is at 0,69, marking the country as one of the most unequal in the world.”
President Zuma told the policy meeting that the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality posed long-term risks for Africa’s richest country 18 years after the end of apartheid.
“The structure of the apartheid-era economy has remained largely intact,” President Zuma said.
“The ownership of the economy is still primarily in the hands of white males as it has always been.”
In recent years, the ANC has drafted a raft of policy documents that call on mining firms to pay more to the state to help finance welfare spending.
The proposals also advocate relying on state-owned enterprises to be engines of job creation and growth but these have met with resistance by some in the ANC, drawing the wrath of the majority who feel the liberation party has failed to deliver on its promises.
“The time has come to do something more drastic towards economic transformation and freedom,” President Zuma said.
Yet there are fears that if the ANC does not take serious measures to empower the people, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) could pose a huge threat.
The DA whose links with whites have been widely reported could present serious challenges that ZANU PF and President Robert Mugabe faced in Zimbabwe through the white owned and funded MDC-T.
On the other hand expelled ANC youth leader Julius Malema who recently formed his own political party, Economic Freedom Fighters whose main agenda is ‘to return the economy to the hands of the majority’ could also pose a threat to the ANC’s stranglehold ahead of elections scheduled for next year.
Malema, the firebrand leader who a few years ago not many thought would be at the helm of another political party, has been consistent in his call for nationalisation of mines.
Property rights, one of the key areas of Malema’s campaign, are still a volatile issue in South Africa.
“This is your land,” Malema told supporters at the launch of his party recently.
“It was already paid by the sweat of your fathers.
“We are not going to beg for the land.
“Bring back the land.”
As elections beckon for South Africa next year, equal distribution of wealth is an issue that the ANC must seriously look at if it is to maintain its dominance as the leading political force in the country.
This however may prove to be a tall order for Zuma.