There are often calls for a Marshall Plan to rebuild South Africa and redress past colonial sins. But as ISMAIL LAGARDIEN argues, it’s an unrealistic idea that will only work here if we can first fix our own democracy and good governance.
IN October last year, during one of his fits of verbal frothing at the mouth, EFF leader Julius Malema said (I assume to white people), “For their apartheid, for their rape for their murder. When they apologise, they must do it the African way. We need cattle… a synonym of money. They must pay us billions and billions.”
All that white people have to do, according to Malema, is “pay billions and billions”. The better angels of our nature may well see the statement for what it is: the inflammatory rhetoric of a man who thrives on manipulating the emotions of disaffected people.
A set of deeper questions may need to be addressed. Among the first is what will actually be done with the “billions and billions”. Other than simply lining the pockets of elites – to be sure European governments have despatched billions and billions to Africa over the past six decades or more. There has to be a formal, structured and purposeful plan to guide spending in the (unlikely) event that “billions and billions” are handed over. ..
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FIVE REASONS
Why a Marshall Plan won’t work for SA
There are often calls for a Marshall Plan to rebuild South Africa and redress past colonial sins. But as ISMAIL LAGARDIEN argues, it’s an unrealistic idea that will only work here if we can first fix our own democracy and good governance.
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IN October last year, during one of his fits of verbal frothing at the mouth, EFF leader Julius Malema said (I assume to white people), “For their apartheid, for their rape for their murder. When they apologise, they must do it the African way. We need cattle… a synonym of money. They must pay us billions and billions.”
All that white people have to do, according to Malema, is “pay billions and billions”. The better angels of our nature may well see the statement for what it is: the inflammatory rhetoric of a man who thrives on manipulating the emotions of disaffected people.
A set of deeper questions may need to be addressed. Among the first is what will actually be done with the “billions and billions”. Other than simply lining the pockets of elites – to be sure European governments have despatched billions and billions to Africa over the past six decades or more. There has to be a formal, structured and purposeful plan to guide spending in the (unlikely) event that “billions and billions” are handed over. ..
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Ismail Lagardien
WriterLagardien, a visiting professor at the Wits University School of Governance, has worked in the office of the chief economist of the World Bank, as well as the secretariat of the National Planning Commission.