President Cyril Ramaphosa said despite many challenges, the government has made significant strides to improve the lives of the people since 1994.
Ramaphosa was delivering a keynote address at the Freedom Day celebration event at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Saturday.
“Over the past thirty years we have sought to implement policies and programmes that advance equality and human dignity in areas like economic empowerment, education, health care, social support, and the provision of basic services.
During apartheid, the policies, programmes, and services of the state had a strict racial bias and hierarchy.
Our task over the last 30 years has been to bridge the huge divides of wealth and opportunity in our country – between black and white, between men and women, between urban and rural dwellers,” said Ramaphosa.
He added that the government has built houses, clinics, hospitals, roads, and bridges, brought electricity, water and sanitation into millions of homes.
The president however acknowledged that there have been some challenges, noting high rate of unemployment, slow economic growth and slow land restitution, highly unequal society, poverty, and underdevelopment amongst others.
Ramaphosa said the advent of democracy in 1994 ushered in a constitutional order premised on equality, freedom, and human rights for all.
He said since then, the dignity of all the people of South Africa was restored.
“Millions of black South Africans, African, coloured, and Indian, were at the mercy of laws and practices that were enforced to serve the interests of a white minority.
Their land was taken, their labour was exploited, their prospects were stunted.
That we have been able to cast off the yoke of oppression and build a new nation rooted in equality and human rights is among the greatest feats of modern history,” highlighted Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa said before the 27th of April 1994 many believed the country would descend into a race war, but they have been proven wrong.
“Many believed that given how deep the wounds of mistrust were, that we would turn against each other.
And yet we did not do so.
Together, we worked hard and with purpose to bring about a reconciliation between the races,” said the president.
He added that the country’s democracy is young and that the progress that has been made in a relatively short period of thirty years is something of which we can and should all be proud.
He said government has established a society founded on the rule of law, the premise of equality before the law, built democratic institutions and have rid our statute books of racist and sexist apartheid laws.
According to the president, the Bill of Rights is the foundation for a society rooted in equality regardless of race, gender, sex, or sexual orientation.
“Women in South Africa today enjoy full equality before the law.
As a society, we have made significant advances in giving effect to the rights of women.
We have worked together to ensure that women are empowered in the home, in communities, in society and in the economy,” explained Ramaphosa.
He also said that close to half of the Members of Parliament, judges and magistrates are women, and more than 60% of public servants are women.
The president also paid homage, to all South Africans who sacrificed their lives for the freedom the country enjoys today.
“We remember the heroes and heroines whose actions made it possible for us to gather here today as a free people.
On this day, we fondly remember Nelson Mandela, our first democratically elected president and the father of our democracy.
In his memory we will continue to work tirelessly to achieve the democratic ideals to which he and many other heroes and heroines dedicated their lives,” said Ramaphosa.
