ABSTRACT

South Africa achieved independence/democracy a couple of decades after many other countries in the region. Independence occurred in the context of global recession, the collapse of the state socialism, and the introduction of structural adjustment programs elsewhere on the continent (Habib & Padayachee, 2000). Highly industrialized and rich in state assets, at independence the new government had economic advantages relative to other SSA countries at the time of their independence (Bond, 2000). Redistribution of these economic advantages to its people had always been a central goal of South Africa’s antiapartheid movement. This goal is expressed in the 1955 Freedom Charter, a guiding document for the African National Congress (ANC, 1955):