The country needed a black capitalist class to ensure the economic empowerment of black people, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday.
"This is and must be an important part of the process of the deracialisation of the ownership of productive property in our country," Mbeki told delegates at the annual national conference of the Black Management Forum in Kempton Park.
Mbeki told the conference it was sad to learn that black control of the country's economy in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was below 50 percent and that it could fall below one percent in the few months.
"This bad news could, and probably has, served sharply to focus our attention on the challenges that face all of us as we struggle to achieve black economic empowerment.
"As part of the realisation of the aim to eradicate racism in our country, we must strive to create and strengthen a black capitalist class," the president said.
The waning fortunes of black-controlled companies in the JSE highlighted the fact that, five years after the advent of the democracy, "we have not made much progress and may very well be marching backwards with regard to the objective of deracialisation of the ownership of productive property".
Mbeki said government would help black people to become entrepreneurs through new tender and procurement policies and supplying capital from funding agencies.
However, the president warned against instances where black business people had rented themselves out to white business people to win government tenders in order to acquire more personal wealth such as a grand house, a grand car and a grand salary.
"I am certain that all of us would agree that we would exclude such people from among those we would describe as activists for black economic empowerment," Mbeki said.
Even though members of the black middle class might have moved out of the township into suburban residences, none of them could avoid the daily recognition that racism continued to be a defining feature of the new South Africa.
"Because racism lives, the struggle continues! Because of that, the ANC (African National Congress) must remain what it has been for many decades, a movement for the elimination on the legacy of the system of racism, in the interest of all South Africans, whatever their race or colour or class or gender," Mbeki said. - Sapa