The government's policy on affirmative action remains firmly in place, President Kgalema Motlanthe said on Tuesday.
Replying in the National Assembly to points raised during debate on his State of the Nation address, he referred to Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder's statement about the effects of affirmative action on young white South Africans.
Mulder said, among other things, they "hear that their skills and contribution toward the development of this country is not needed".
Motlanthe said government remained committed to the principle of correcting previous injustices and ensuring that discrimination historically visited upon black people was eliminated.
| 'We are all driven by patriotism' |
"This is not only logical but also a constitutional imperative," he said.
"As we have always maintained, affirmative action aims at involving all South Africans at all levels of the economy and social life.
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"We need only cite a few statistics to show just how racial disparity still characterises our society."
Among other things, in 2007, the unemployment rate among blacks was 30 percent, as opposed to only four percent among whites.
A September 2008 survey showed that 5.5 percent of African university graduates were unemployed, while the figure for other population groups was negligible.
| 'There is therefore no validity to the concerns' |
"The dire consequences of these disparities on our efforts at rebuilding the country is self evident," Motlanthe said.
"We wish to emphasis that if the kinds of strange things [cited by Mulder as examples] arise in the course of correcting the historical injustice and involving all South Africans in building their country, these should be dealt with concretely.
"However, this should not result in us questioning the policy of affirmative action as such," he said.
Motlanthe also repeated that in spite of the global economic downturn, government would continue with its public investment projects, the value of which had increased to R690-billion, for the next three years.
"We will intensify public sector employment programmes; we will work with the private sector to counteract an investment slowdown and unnecessary closures of production lines; and government will sustain and expand social expenditure."
Turning to suggestions that the Constitution had been "betrayed", Motlanthe insisted the Constitution was not under any form of threat from any quarter.
"Instead, and on the contrary, the events of the last few months attest to that.
"Matters of national interest, which often stir up robust and heated debates in society, must be understood as the necessary oxygen of democracy," he said.
"When society launches into such debates, it is because we are all driven by patriotism and a desire to build a better society.
"Since 1994, we have had regular successful democratic general elections, all of them free and fair. National and provincial elections this year will further deepen the democratic culture in our nation.
"There is therefore no validity to the concerns about the putative peril of our Constitution," Motlanthe said. - Sapa
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