Yes, I'm an African, born and bred. My forebears arrived in South Africa in 1688. My later forebears fought the first modern anti-colonial war on the… - F. W. de Klerk

Our failure to achieve greater income equality is reflected in the fact that our Gini index has deteriorated from 66 in 1996, to 70 in 2008. Inequality has also increased within all our population groups – from 54 to 62 among black South Africans, and from 43 to 50 among whites. The most equal countries in the world – Japan, Sweden and Denmark – have Gini indexes of 25. In these countries the top 10% earn only six times as much as the bottom 10%. By contrast, the top 10% in South Africa earn 110 times more than the bottom 10%.
The long-term solution to the problems of poverty and inequality lies in vastly improving our education and training system, in creating jobs and in ensuring rapid and sustainable economic growth. It will also be essential to address the underlying social problems identified by the World Bank. These are precisely the factors that have been diagnosed and addressed by the South Africa’s National Planning Commission in its National Development Plan. The challenge will be to ensure that we successfully implement the National Development Plan. If we can do so, I am confident that we will be able to make continuing progress in reducing poverty and inequality – and thus, in achieving the vision in our Constitution.

[M]y ideal is that what we should do is to, to also rise above that and to achieve true non-racialism.

There are powers that are trying to manipulate our country's history by trying to portray it as dark, suppressive and unfair... Yes, we have made mistakes. Yes, we have often sinned and we don't deny this. But that we were evil, malignant and mean–to that we say "no"!