Pretoria - South Africa's private sector has been given a chance to increase employment for the past 20 years and has failed, the Economic Freedom Fighters said on Monday.
“The private sector has failed and was not able to deal with unemployment and inequality,” EFF commissar on political education and research Floyd Shivambu said during an election debate by leaders of various political parties in Unisa, Pretoria.
The EFF would nationalise the country's mines, banks and redistribute land among the landless, he said.
“There is something scandalous about South Africa's revenue sources... we are the number one producer of minerals in the world.”
There was an urgent need for change in the tax structure for corporates, Shivambu said.
“The mineral wealth of this country is worth US$4.7 trillion (R50.4 trillion), but mines' contribution to the national fiscus is only 20 percent. That cant be right.”
Lyndall Shope-Mafole of the Congress of the People said most socialist countries had moved from socialism.
“I grew up in socialist countries and attended school in Czechoslovakia and Cuba. The Czech Republic has done away with socialism and nationalisation, Cuba on other hand is starting to privatise,” she said.
DA Gauteng premier candidate Mmusi Maimane said the country needed to build a culture of entrepreneurship.
“We need to encourage an environment conducive for investments and build entrepreneur(s), and therefore lay ground for development and create jobs,” Maimane said.
Sapa