Obz Square hosts political debate

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Published on Tuesday, 14 February 2012 11:21

Written by Alex Nagel

A panel debate was held last night at Obz Square discussing President Jacob Zuma's "State of the Nation" address. Panel members included the ANC's Professor Ben Turok, the DA's Lance Greyling, UCT’s SRC President Insaaf Isaacs and UCT’s Leader of Student Assembly Lusani Nemalili.

Professot Turok opened the debate addressing the lack of infrastructure in South Africa. “South Africa has become deindustrialised”, he argued, due to the government’s decreasing amount of “fiscal discipline” and increasing levels of corruption.

Lance Greyling furthered the point on South Africa’s current economic issues. He stated how the government needs to “leverage the capabilities of the private sector” in order to execute corruption from filtering down into the public sector.

The issue of “where the South African youth fit in” to the equation was raised by Lusani Nemalili. With regards to the private sector, Nemalili commented that “if they’re not educated, then they’re basically useless”.

Finally Insaaf Isaacs addressed South Africa being as being a diverse country. Isaacs disagreed with President Zuma when he stated that different ideologies within the government are a weakness. Rather, Isaacs believes that “strength lies in diversity” and more people need to be encouraged to have their voices heard.