I will try to answer three questions this afternoon;
1. Which way are we going?
2. Why?
3. Can we find a better way forward?
Apart from racial policy, the institute I head has been documenting almost every aspect of South Africa since our foundation in 1929. It was inevitable then that when the ANC came to power in 1994, people asked us why South Africa should not become just another African disaster.
I gave the usual list of advantages: a greater pool of skills, good infrastructure, a resilient private sector, our strong international economic linkages, a tradition of political pluralism, independent trade unions, a free press, and the vigour of our NGO sector. Since then the country has won golden opinions for macroeconomic policy management, reflected most recently in a heavily oversubscribed 30-year government bond.
Despite this, we now learn almost daily of things that prompt the question once again: are we headed for the list of African failures. Recently an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurred because a vital border fence with Mozambique had been neglected.
