Professor Colin Bundy
Inequality in Post Apartheid South Africa: Its History and Its Characteristics
Summary
Throughout Jacob Zuma’s nine-year presidency, corruption and crony capitalism reached new heights. Zuma’s intimate ties with the nefarious Gupta family lay at the heart of “state capture"—the manipulation of the state’s decision-making processes by private interests. In this lecture, Colin Bundy also discusses the record of the African National Congress over the last 30 years, with a focus on factionalism and corruption.
Professor Colin Bundy
Historian Colin Bundy retired after a career as an academic and university administrator. He served as vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, principal of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and principal of Green Templeton College, Oxford. As a scholar he was best known for his Rise and Fall of a South African Peasantry and was co-author (with William Beinart) of Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa. He has published widely on South African history and politics, and this lecture draws upon two of his books in the Jacana Pocket series: Short-changed? South Africa since apartheid, and Poverty in South Africa: Past and Present.
They typically come from access, through black economic empowerment to the boardroom. Cyril Ramaphosa is a very good example. Ramaphosa left politics for business in 1997. He became, he was eagerly sought after for his personal skills and experience and he became a director of a number of companies. He began to invest widely and became a Rand billionaire, and that’s been the main route, rather than entrepreneurial, it’s been people getting wealthy in the service and financial sector through black economic empowerment. There are of course successful entrepreneurs and and so on, but the overall, the income has come from a policy designed to grow, in kind of hothouse conditions, an African economic elite.
That’s a key question. I believe, as the lecturer earlier today said that perhaps the single blackest mark against the ANC government that’s been in power for 30 years is that 30 years into post apartheid, public schools are still failing institutions. Africans are still receiving, the majority of Africans receiving deficient education, and until that improves, it’s going to take decades if not generations to equalise life opportunities.