Hon Speaker, this debate today speaks to the very heart of the kind of society we are trying to build in South Africa. South Africa is often recognised as one of the most unequal societies in the world and it is clear that more needs to be done in order to address this challenge. This inequality is related to a number of factors, though, with our apartheid legacy obviously being one of the main contributors. Unfortunately, our abject failure to improve our education system in the last 18 years has also perpetuated the vast disparities we see in our country.
In addressing all these issues, however, it is important that we adopt measures that are going to make a sustainable and long-term difference in the lived reality of our people. It is too easy to fall into the trap of emotive language that simply pits one group of South Africans against another. This approach will not help us find the shared solutions that we all need to buy into if we are going to take this country forward and help build a fairer society.
I am extremely concerned about the kind of society we seem to have settled on, a society that all too often values crass materialism above the values of a common humanity. The first thing we need to do is to inculcate a spirit amongst all of us that sees hard work and sustained effort rewarded with fair compensation. A get-rich-quickly mentality seems to have pervaded our society, along with a need to ostentatiously display our wealth to others.
In a society where so many of us are struggling to survive on a daily basis, this kind of behaviour should not be venerated. Like many South Africans, I am also appalled at the obscene bonuses that many CEOs are given and shareholders need to be far more active in ensuring that this does not happen.
One way to do this is to institute empowerment schemes, in which workers can become shareholders and have a greater stake and voice in the running of companies. Political patronage that simply sees the same small group of people becoming spectacularly rich through their political connections also needs to be overhauled. Far more South Africans need to be given a stake in this economy and shared-ownership schemes is one means of achieving it.
In terms of parastatals, we also need to build a greater sense of public service, whereby advancing the public good is valued more than their monetary compensation. In Brazil they have a principle that no one in the public service, including parastatals, can earn more than the President. The only principle that we seem to have in South Africa is that no one can have a bigger house than the President.
Ultimately, we need a new social compact in our country where everyone recognises each other's contribution and where the different levels of compensation are based on performance and seen as intrinsically fair. This will, however, require visionary political leadership that can involve all of us in building the kind of society we all dreamed of in 1994. I thank you.