The total net wealth of just three billionaires in SA is equivalent to that of the bottom 50% of country’s population, according to Oxfam’s inequality report released on Monday.
The country was still one of the most unequal in the world, said OxfamSA economic justice manager Ayabonga Cawe.
Oxfam’s international report on inequality was released ahead of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa leadse SA’s delegation at the meeting.
The report, titled An economy for the 99%, showed that the gap between rich and poor was far greater than feared, the organisation said.
According to Oxfam, in SA the richest 1% of the population has 42% of the total wealth.
"Such inequality is a sign of a broken economy, from global to local, and lack of will from government to change the status quo," executive director Sipho Mthathi said. "Governments including the South African government, can act to help everyone, not just those at the top.
Giving a summary of the report to journalists in Johannesburg, Cawe said the Davos meeting in Switzerland was a clear indication of how uninclusive the global economy was. Globally, eight men owned as much wealth as the 3.6-billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity.
Cawe said the economy of the top 1% was built on a set of false assumptions, namely:
• The market is always right and the role of governments should be minimised;
• Companies need to maximise profits and returns to shareholders at all costs;
• Extreme individual wealth is benign and a sign of success and inequality is not relevant;
• GDP growth should be the primary goal of policy making;
• The economic model is genders neutral; and
• The planet’s resources are limitless.
Oxfam said its report showed how broken economies were funneling wealth to a rich elite at the expense of the poorest.
"The richest are accumulating wealth at such an astonishing rate that the world could see its first trillionaire in just 25 years," it said. "To put this figure in perspective, you would have expected to be spending $1m every day for 2,738 years to spend $1-trillion."
This when one in 10 people survived on less than $2 dollars a day.
The biggest causes of this inequality globally, according to Oxfam, were companies working for those at the top, squeezing workers and producers, dodging tax and buying politics and crony capitalism.
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