Political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki has indicted South Africa’s “ruling political elites” for contributing to the country’s economic dysfunction
Political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki has indicted South Africa’s “ruling political elites” for contributing to the country’s economic dysfunction by milking state coffers, while urging the private sector to get involved in finding a solution.
Speaking at a Xubera Institute for Research and Development forum near Durban last Friday, Mbeki — who has often criticised the government, including under the presidency of his brother Thabo Mbeki — honed in on the reasons behind a crisis illustrated by an economy limping along with just 0.1% growth during the first quarter of 2025 and a 32.9% unemployment rate.
“South Africa has one problem — and please don’t listen to Donald Trump. Our problem is the economy,” Mbeki said, alluding to the recent slamming of South African policies by the US president.
Mbeki highlighted the minerals sector as providing a stark illustration of the economy’s systemic failure.
With minerals accounting for 60% of South Africa’s exports, the ongoing war between the Minerals Council, representing major producers, and Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, showed a self-destructive pattern of political interference that threatened the nation’s economic lifeline, Mbeki warned.
“Why is the minister of mines fighting the mining industry instead of working with the mining industry?” he asked, referring to the dispute that started with a review of the 2018 Mining Charter, which aims to strengthen black economic empowerment in the sector.
Mbeki traced the roots of the current economic crisis to the country’s fundamental power shift to democracy on 27 April 1994.
“Before that date, political power rested with property owners — the owners of mines, banks and supermarkets. What happened was a transfer of political power from people who owned property to people who don’t own assets,” he said.
“The new rulers don’t have land, don’t have mines, don’t have banks, don’t have shops. So where do they live off? They live off the state.”
As a result, the political elite were “milking” the state coffers with the public sector wage bill having ballooned to an unprecedented 17% of GDP — the highest globally. By comparison, developed economies allocate just 10% to public sector wages.
The government collects about R2 trillion annually, Mbeki said, with 84% immediately consumed by two line items — public sector wages and debt servicing. This leaves virtually nothing for infrastructure, development or economic expansion.
He noted that the International Monetary Fund had repeatedly warned about the unsustainability of South Africa’s public sector spending.
“The department of finance [the treasury] a year or so ago, revealed that more than 55 000 public sector employees, including politicians and ministers, more than 55 000 of them earn more than a million rands a year. If you walk into the national parliament, you walk in there and fall asleep, which many of them do. You earn R1.2 million. But without doing anything, just walking in,” he said.
“There aren’t many businesses that are profitable that give a livelihood to one individual of a million rands a year … The controllers of political power use their political power to enrich themselves through the public service. They are milking, literally milking, the whole economy to pay themselves fabulous salaries.”
Mbeki said the business elite, which employs 75% of people in South Africa, was finding itself increasingly paralysed as it faced the threat of expropriation without compensation and had adopted a survival strategy of minimal investment.
According to the latest data from Statistics South Africa, youth unemployment is about 65% and the expanded unemployment rate, which includes discouraged job seekers, stands at 44.1% — a ticking time bomb of social instability.
“When you have such a large population that’s not working, then that’s a recipe for disaster, and many of these non-working people are young people under the age of 35, so you’re sitting on a time bomb,” Mbeki said.
South African Reserve Bank data shows that private sector fixed investment has declined for seven consecutive quarters, with business confidence at its lowest levels in decades. The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s business confidence index has been below the neutral 50-point mark for 36 consecutive months.
“If you own an asset, and you have a threat of your assets being seized without compensation, what will you do? You invest as little as possible just to keep your business ticking,” Mbeki said.
About R1 trillion was sitting idle in current accounts, with businesses refusing to invest because of political uncertainty, he said.
South Africa’s policies on land and property, including the recently signed Expropriation Act, have come into renewed focus in the face of accusations by Trump’s administration that they have been used to persecute whites.
Despite joining President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC in a government of national unity last year, the former main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has maintained its opposition to such legislation, launching court challenges to both the Expropriation Act and the Employment Equity Amendment Act.
Ramaphosa defended the policies in parliament last month, arguing that racial redress after apartheid was not a hindrance to economic growth, but an essential step towards broadening black participation in the economy to spur growth.
Mbeki said he believed the ANC would not actually implement the Expropriation Act.
“This is all posturing. They haven’t got the guts to do it. They think it will win them the election, but Trump has called their bluff, so now we saw them shivering in front of Trump in the White House … that’s what happens when you bluff,” he said.
He was referring to a recent visit to Washington by a delegation led by Ramaphosa, which started off with Trump again slamming South Africa’s policies — a spectacle broadcast live on television.
Mbeki said 68% of South Africans live in urban areas and depend on commercial farmers for food security.
Responding to a question from a man in the audience about land redistribution, he said:
“If we take the land from the present commercial farmers and give it to my brother’s family there, they can’t produce to feed the population.
“They haven’t got the capital, they haven’t got the skills, they haven’t got all the things that you need to be able to run a productive commercial farm in South Africa today. That is reality we have to live with.”
He said agricultural exports were also important to the economy because they accounted for about 15% of the country’s total exports.
Mbeki said the political landscape offered little hope with parties such as ActionSA and the DA offering no substantive economic solutions.
“The DA is a middle-class party, like the ANC is a middle-class party, like ActionSA is a middle-class party. Doesn’t matter whether you’re white or black, they’re a middle-class party and they defend the interests of the middle classes,” he said.
“They haven’t changed the structure of the economy. They haven’t come up with a strategy for overcoming the 40% unemployment that we’re sitting with in this country.
“We have to bring down the standard of living of the public sector employees and we have to dilute the power of the propertyless political elite. That has to be diluted with the power of the workers, the power of the poor and the power of the capitalist. They have to dilute the power of the middle class that is now dominant in our political system.”
Drawing a comparison with South Korea, Mbeki highlighted the opportunity cost of South Africa’s political model. In 1950, the two countries were economically comparable. Today, the Korean economy is nearly three times the size of South Africa’s.
“Korea invested in its human resources. Their life expectancy is nearly 80, ours is 61. That’s what investing in human capital means,” he said.
Mbeki dismissed the notion that some white South Africans longed for a return of apartheid.
“Apartheid will never come back in South Africa. The notion that white people want apartheid back is totally not true … A huge part of the white population did not support apartheid,” he said.
Mbeki urged business to get involved in politics to rescue the economy.
“We need more active political activity from the owners of capital in South Africa, because without their participation, as I showed, they control most of the skilled labour force in this country, without their labour force, without their management skills, we can’t have both calls like this one.”
“Property owners have to intervene in the political system and become political participants. This is one of the problems we have in South Africa — that the owners of capital only act when we’re on the edge of the precipice.”
Xubera Institute for Research and Development founder Xolani Dube said the country was facing a catastrophe and people had been “zombified” into not confronting it.
“Possibly those who crafted this catastrophe were fully aware of the people they are dealing with — they are dealing with people who are docile. So, what Xubera is trying to do is to conscientise people about the issues facing our country,” Dube said.
“Unfortunately, the more we discuss, others are digging the grave for us so, in a way, we have submerged in this hollow grave and unfortunately we are dragging our kids into this grave. And when we rise, we rise for our own selfish issues, but not the issues that bind us all. That’s the sad part.”
KwaZulu-Natal finance MEC Francois Rodgers, a DA member of the provincial government, said Mbeki’s analysis should give disenfranchised and disinterested voters hope that they could make a difference at the ballot.
He said the country’s economic situation was due to the government’s previous bad decisions.
“It’s the sins of our fathers that we are now dealing with. It’s poor policy decisions — R600 billion that was spent on bailing out state- owned entities. This is the type of situation that we’ve inherited that we now need to deal with,” he said.
“But you now have a multi-party government in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, not a one-party dominant government, and it means there’s more accountability, but you are never going to change the inherited system overnight.
“It’s going to take time to turn it around but I would suggest that we’re in an exciting and vibrant political situation with challenges. We understand those challenges but we need to collectively start taking an active interest in politics and in political parties.”