The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) welcomes the landmark report of the G20 Expert Panel on Global Inequality, chaired by Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz and released today by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The report confirms what the working class has said for years: inequality is not an accident of history but a deliberate outcome of policy choices that privilege wealth over work and corporations over communities. It calls for a permanent International Panel on Inequality to hold governments to account for their actions.
But South Africa’s government, headed by one of the world’s richest presidents, has no moral authority to lecture the globe on inequality. Under three decades of African National Congress (ANC) rule, inequality has deepened in every sphere: jobs, income, land, property, wealth, and opportunity.
SOUTH AFRICA: THE CAPITAL OF GLOBAL INEQUALITY
Unemployment: the real picture
According to the latest Quarter 2 (2025) data from Statistics South Africa,
• The official unemployment rate stands at 33.2 percent, representing people actively seeking work;
• The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes discouraged work-seekers and those who have given up looking, is 42.9 percent—over 11.7 million South Africans without work.
For young people aged 15–24, the expanded unemployment rate exceeds 70 percent, and among those aged 25–34 it hovers near 50 percent.
These are not temporary numbers—they represent a permanent exclusion of an entire generation from the labour market.
INCOME INEQUALITY: HOW MANY LIFETIMES MUST WORKERS LABOUR TO MATCH A CEO?
Income inequality has reached grotesque levels.
• The average Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company now earns about 340 times more than the average worker.
• In some firms the gap rises above 400 times, meaning a worker would need to work between 340 and 400 years to earn what their CEO takes home in a single year.
• The top 10 percent of earners capture 65 percent of all national income, while the bottom 50 percent share only 5 percent.
• The labour share of national income has plunged from 55 percent in 1994 to below 45 percent today, as profits, executive bonuses, and shareholder dividends skyrocket.
The ANC has presided over an economy that rewards speculation and management excess while punishing those who actually produce society’s wealth.
POVERTY, HUNGER AND THE COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS
The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity (PMBEJD) Household Food Basket now costs R5 440 (October 2025), while a worker earning the National Minimum Wage of R28.79 per hour earns about R4 600 a month before deductions.
That means a full-time worker cannot even afford a basic food basket.
The Food Poverty Line is R796 per person per month, and more than 30 million South Africans live below it.
The Child Support Grant remains at R560, inadequate even to feed one child.
Hunger, not inflation alone, defines the daily life of millions.
4. LAND, PROPERTY AND OPPORTUNITY: ECONOMIC APARTHEID PERSISTS
Despite the promises of 1994:
• White South Africans (less than 8 percent of the population) still own over 70 percent of agricultural land.
• Urban property markets exclude the black majority through speculative pricing and exclusionary zoning.
• The housing backlog now exceeds 2.4 million units, while elites accumulate luxury estates and second homes.
The ANC’s “willing buyer, willing seller” approach has enriched connected intermediaries, not workers or rural communities. Land and property remain the foundation stones of inequality.
BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT: FROM BROAD-BASED TO ELITE CAPTURE
The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) programme was meant to democratise ownership but has become a pipeline for elite enrichment.
A small, politically connected class, including President Ramaphosa himself, accumulated enormous wealth while millions remain trapped in poverty.
This is not empowerment but co-optation: the recycling of apartheid’s class inequality under a new colour scheme.
GOVERNMENT HYPOCRISY: WHAT THE ANC REFUSES TO DO
While the President lectures the G20 about fairness, his government refuses to act at home:
1. No Wealth or Solidarity Tax, despite clear Treasury modelling.
2. No clamp-down on illicit financial flows, which drain roughly R300 billion a year through tax-evasion and profit-shifting.
3. Endemic tender corruption, consuming 35–40 percent of procurement budgets.
4. No Universal Basic Income Grant (UBIG), the R370 Social Relief of Distress Grant remains a temporary pittance.
5. No Comprehensive Social Security System, despite NEDLAC-endorsed blueprints.
6. Continuing austerity, cutting posts for teachers, nurses and police while the elite enjoy record profits.
These are deliberate political decisions, not administrative oversights.
SAFTU’S DEMANDS: REAL SOLUTIONS FOR REAL EQUALITY
- Mass Employment and Industrialisation
Create a Public Employment and Industrialisation Programme to rebuild infrastructure, expand care services, and drive localised, labour-intensive industries.
(2) Tax and Financial Justice
• Implement a Net Wealth Tax, Inheritance Tax Reform, and Financial-Transaction Tax.
• Establish a Public Beneficial-Ownership Register and back the United Nations Tax Convention to end corporate profit-shifting.
(3) Universal Basic Income Grant (UBIG) and Comprehensive Social Security
• Introduce a Universal Basic Income Grant equal to the upper-bound poverty line (≈ R1 558 per month).
• Integrate all grants into a Comprehensive Social Security System guaranteeing income protection for all adults, including informal workers and caregivers.
(4) Land and Property Redistribution
• Expropriate idle and speculative land for redistribution to working-class families and cooperatives.
• Prioritise community agriculture, housing, and urban-land trusts.
(5) End Corruption and Procurement Theft
• Create an independent Public Procurement Authority with full investigative powers.
• Digitise and publish all tenders and beneficial-ownership data.
(6) Fair Wages and Worker Power
• Legislate a Living Wage linked to the real cost of living.
• Ban labour broking and outsourcing.
• Strengthen collective bargaining rights.
INEQUALITY IS A POLITICAL CHOICE
The Stiglitz report confirms what SAFTU has always said: inequality is a political construct maintained by those who benefit from it.
While millions of workers struggle to survive on starvation wages, a CEO earns in one year what a worker would earn in three to four centuries.
While 11 million people are jobless, the President sits among South Africa’s billionaires preaching equality.
The ANC government has no moral right to lecture the world about inequality when it has entrenched it at home.
Until it abandons austerity, elite-based empowerment and corruption, and embraces a worker-led socialist transformation grounded in redistribution and dignity for all, South Africa will remain the world’s inequality capital, not its conscience.
SAFTU will continue to mobilise workers, communities and allies, locally and internationally, to turn the Stiglitz report’s warnings into action.
An injury to one is an injury to all, regardless of nationality.’’
A statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries, contact the National Spokesperson at:
Newton Masuku at:
Newton@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
