- Apartheid: 25 Years Later South Africans Still Not Free -Ramaphosa
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said a quarter of a century after apartheid ended in South Africa, the nation is still not free given its present poverty rate, unemployment, and corruption.
The President, who spoke at a ceremony in Makhanda in the Southern part of the Country, said South African citizens “gathered here to celebrate the day we won our freedom.”
South Africa held its first democratic elections on April 27, 1994, the day blacks majority were first allowed to vote. A day 46 years old apartheid regime ended.
“We remember the moment we placed a cross on a ballot paper for the first time in our lives,” the president said, paying homage to Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid campaigner who was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994.
Nevertheless, “we cannot be a nation of free people when so many still live in poverty,” Ramaphosa said.
“We cannot be a nation of free people when so many live without enough food, without proper shelter, without access to quality health care, without a means to earn a living,” he continued.
“We cannot be a nation of free people when funds meant for the poor are wasted, lost or stolen (…) when there is still corruption within our own country.”
Ramaphosa is head of the African National Congress, the party that has been in power since the end of apartheid.
He took over as president in 2018 from Jacob Zuma, who was forced to resign as a result of a number of corruption scandals.
“As we celebrate 25 years of democracy, we need to focus all our attention and efforts on ensuring that all South Africans can equally experience the economic and social benefits of freedom,” Ramaphosa said.
Despite the emergence of the middle class in the second largest economy in Africa, 20 percent of black households still live in abject poverty, higher than 2.9 percent of white households. The economic growth slowed to 1.4 percent in the final quarter of 2018 while the projection for 2019 has been lowered.
South Africa’s unemployment rate presently stood at 27 percent, higher than the 20 percent average in 1994.