Afrikanerbond chairperson Pierre Theron has appealed to prominent black businessmen to start an upliftment fund for black South Africans, similar to that launched in the 1930s to benefit poverty-stricken Afrikaners.
Addressing the Cape Town Press Club on Tuesday, he said the fund launched by the Afrikanerbond’s predecessor, the Afrikaner Broederbond, raised R30-million over only six years in the early 1930s.
That money was used to establish, among others, Volkskas Bank and Sanlam.
”Today I challenge the Patrice Motsepes and the Tokyo Sexwales of South Africa to initiate a similar fund … to which ordinary South Africans could pay their one rands, five rands and ten rands and more, to make this a fund from which businesses can be funded and initiated in South Africa.”
This would no doubt contribute to alleviating the extreme levels of poverty still in the country.
Notably, huge corporations founded by the Afrikanerbond today served all South Africans and belonged to all with equity shares and the like, he said.
Theron was also critical of the way affirmative action was being implemented, saying the Constitution and Freedom Charter were clear about equal rights and that South Africa belonged to all who lived in it — black and white.
In practice, however, this idea was nullified by affirmative action and employment equity.
”Minorities who are the target of political agendas cannot help to build a great nation.
”Minorities …. whose interests and rights are not acknowledged, cannot be loyal to what is going on in South Africa.
”At the present moment, the balance between majority and minority interests is being undermined by the discriminatory way in which the African National Congress government is applying affirmative action,” he said.
South Africa should be a country in which the right of every person to achieve their goals was guaranteed, with merit the only criteria.
”We have reverted to skin colour, again, to determine what kind of South African you are, instead of just being a South African.”
The Afrikanerbond was working to create a South Africa in which all belonged, and young people did not have to abandon their country to live abroad to make a living.
”This is a proud country. This is a wonderful country, and I want to see that everything is done to develop this country to its full potential,” Theron said. — Sapa