Much to celebrate, but much still to do in the next 20 years

In April 2014, South Africa will celebrate 20 years of freedom. It seems like just yesterday when South Africans stood in long, winding queues to cast their first all-inclusive democratic votes.

It was a long and exciting day. President Nelson Mandela symbolically cast his vote at the Inanda School, which was started by the first ANC president, John Langalibalele Dube. Fears of violence in KwaZulu-Natal subsided after the Inkatha Freedom Party decided at the last hour to participate in the elections, which also meant a last-minute adjustment to the ballot paper.

The outcome was a joyous occasion because the ANC, and thus the black majority, won a landslide victory. Behind the scenes, there had been attempts to steal the elections by manipulating the computers, but thanks to the vigilance of people like Peter Harris, head of the monitoring division of the Independent Electoral Commission, this was thwarted.

The economy was in a dreadful state. Our society was deeply divided and many people feared that this new democracy would collapse under the weight of so much expectation and revolt by the die-hard conservatives. Indeed, attempts have been made to subvert this democracy, but they have come to nothing. The Boeremag are now mostly in jail or demobilised. The wise are gradually accepting that the change is here to stay.

So many things have been achieved. I have even learnt to appreciate rugby and cricket. There are no more segregated facilities for blacks and whites. The University of Natal, as it was called, even conferred a PhD on me - the very university that refused me admission in 1979 because the degree I wanted to study for was "available at the nearest black university".

Against this background, it is time to assess the concrete achievements as well as the work that still lies ahead for all of us. I emphasise "all of us" because so often we tend to think that it is only the government that has work to do. The necessary attempt to share responsibility is certainly compromised by those who have made "service delivery" the national mantra, as if we have a passive recipient population waiting for the government delivery vehicle to arrive. This is a bad concept and although it attempts to keep the government honest, it also has the effect of disempowering the many capable spheres of our society.

We have achieved so much, and many analysts have recorded this in various ways. On Monday, my colleagues at Goldman Sachs released a report titled Two Decades of Freedom. This has been welcomed by many and rightly criticised by others. It is a healthy thing to involve ourselves in constructive dialogue. I know that there are many who will use this report to gain undue political mileage, and others who will be scandalised by the notion of success by and for Africans. But hey, such is the nature of subjectivity.

The Goldman Sachs researchers have presented a scientific evaluation based on publicly available data and also on some technical extrapolations. The overall conclusion is that South Africa has done well over the 20 years of freedom. The key achievements are macroeconomic stability (both on the fiscal and monetary side) and financial stability - particularly with regard to the banking system, despite the mini banking crisis in the early 2000s. Gross domestic product has grown from about $140-billion [about R1.4-trillion] to $400-billion, employment has increased from 9.1million to about 14million, and foreign exchange reserves have moved from an overdraft of $25-billion to a positive $50-billion. On the social side, 84% of the population now has access to electricity, 73% to water, 62% to sanitation and a staggering 15.3million to social welfare.

This is worth a million celebrations. But as the population has increased from 41million to 52million and the economy has changed structurally, there has been an increase in the number of unemployed from five million to six million. This is made worse by the fact that about 52% of young people are unemployed. This is a major challenge to the government, the private sector and the education system.

There are a number of key challenges to be faced head-on. Chief among these are the efficiency of state administration, corruption and the looting of public resources, and the faulty education system. In education, the challenge is not about money or budgets, but the curriculum, the pedagogy, commitment, the setting of a high pass level and, some might say, the role of teacher unions in acting as a hindrance to education (for the record, I don't share that view).

We need to learn to use existing technologies and develop new ones. We cannot continue with poor management of public health facilities, a contradictory land restitution and agricultural policy, and infrastructure that has not kept abreast with economic growth, which has averaged about 3% over a long period and has the potential to increase to about 4.5%. Finally, we must continue to build that nonracial dream on which our future as a peaceful and prosperous country rests.

So, all in all, well done, South Africa. A lot lies ahead. We have to harness the energies of all South Africans. Let us try harder to ensure that the next 20 years will see us competing effectively with South Korea, Brazil and India, and far outshine any of the Southern European states. We have to aim for a gross domestic product of at least $1-trillion to reduce unemployment, poverty and inequality and improve the health status of South Africans.

It can be done.

• Mboweni is a former governor of the Reserve Bank. He is a fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study and a consultant to Goldman Sachs