FLOYD SHIVAMBU | A people’s commission of inquiry on black poverty in South Africa is long overdue

On November 12, we addressed the people of South Africa via a press conference on the issues confronting society and called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry into black poverty in the country.

In South Africa, commissions of inquiry have been quasi-judicial processes and have largely focused on wrongdoing. These commissions have served as mechanisms to uncover malfeasance, corruption and governance failures, often in response to public outcry or scandals that threatened the stability of institutions.

In the recent past, the commissions that have taken place include:

1. The Seriti commission, established in 2011 under the leadership of judge Willie Seriti, investigated allegations surrounding the 1999 Strategic Defence Procurement Package, commonly known as the Arms Deal, aiming to probe irregularities in multibillion-rand contracts. Its outcomes did not go anywhere and did not contribute to anything worth considering. 
2. The Farlam commission, set up in 2012 and presided over by retired judge Ian Farlam, examined the tragic events at Marikana where police action led to the deaths of mineworkers, highlighting systemic issues in labour relations and policing. Despite revealing the extent of illicit financial flows and transfer pricing by Lonmin, nothing was done. 
3. The Zondo commission, initiated in 2018 under deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, investigated so-called state capture and fell into the hands of ANC factional battles, and nothing has come of it. 
4. The Nugent inquiry into the South African Revenue Service in 2018, chaired by retired judge Robert Nugent, became a factional instrument of the triumphalist government that had just won an ANC conference and was hellbent on purging opponents in Sars.
5. The Mpati commission, also established in 2018 under retired judge Lex Mpati, which investigated improprieties at the Public Investment Corporation, also became a factional instrument of the triumphalist government that had just won an ANC conference and was hellbent on purging opponents in the PIC. 

These inquiries, while essential for justice, have been retrospective and punitive, concentrating on assigning blame rather than forging pathways to societal advancement. They have not added anything significant to South Africa’s developmental and socioeconomic challenges and crises. These commissions have not changed the price of bread.

The only commission established with a developmental mandate was the commission of inquiry into higher education and training, announced on January 14 2016 by then-president Jacob Zuma in direct response to the #FeesMustFall protests.

Chaired by retired judge Jonathan Arthur Heher, with members Adv Gregory Ally and attorney Leah Thabisile Khumalo, it was tasked with exploring the feasibility of fee-free higher education and training in South Africa. The commission’s 2017 report did not recommend fee-free higher education and opportunistically, Zuma announced free education at the tail end of his term as the ANC president, which made it impossible to realise.

Historically, the whites-only South African government used commissions to directly address poverty and labour issues, demonstrating that such bodies can drive profound change when orientated towards development. Let’s perhaps pay close attention to these commissions:

1. The Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in South Africa, conducted between 1929 and 1932, examined the plight of impoverished Afrikaners amid urbanisation and economic depression. Its comprehensive report highlighted causes like poor education and land dispossession, leading to state interventions such as reserved jobs in the civil service and industrial protection that uplifted many poor whites into the middle class, effectively reducing white poverty through targeted welfare.  This commission laid a solid foundation for the abolishment of white poverty in South Africa. 
2. The Tomlinson commission, formally the Commission for the Socio-Economic Development of the Bantu Areas, established in 1950 and chaired by Prof Frederick Tomlinson, proposed investments in homeland agriculture and industry to alleviate black poverty, though apartheid ideology distorted its recommendations into separate development policies; nonetheless, it spotlighted the structural exclusion of black people from economic opportunities.  
3. The Wiehahn Commission on Labour Legislation, set up in 1977 under Prof Nic Wiehahn, recommended recognising black trade unions and scrapping job reservation, paving the way for the 1979 amendments that empowered organised labour and contributed to the growth of unions like Cosatu, fundamentally altering labour dynamics.  
4. The Riekert commission in 1979, chaired by Pieter Riekert, focused on manpower utilisation and suggested easing influx controls for urbanised blacks, influencing gradual reforms in pass laws. These commissions succeeded in generating evidence-based policies that addressed specific socioeconomic challenges, proving that inquiries can be instruments of progress when they prioritise solutions over blame
5. The Good Hope Conference, which took place on November 12 1981 at the Civic Centre in Cape Town, was essentially a commission-like gathering convened by prime minister PW Botha with business and community leaders to deliberate on regional development strategies amid apartheid’s separate development policies. Its outcomes included: a) urban influx control through indirect financial disincentives on metropolitan industries, replacing coercive pass laws with incentives to decentralise manufacturing to peripheral areas, thereby reducing black migration to white urban centres while sustaining labour supply; b) creation of industrial zones and factories in border areas and within homelands, benefiting all 10: Transkei (e.g., Butterworth), Ciskei, Bophuthatswana (e.g., Babelegi), Venda, Lebowa, Gazankulu, KwaZulu, KwaNdebele, KaNgwane and QwaQwa, via tailored incentives for labour-intensive sectors.

The extent of black poverty in South Africa

Black poverty in South Africa remains a glaring indictment of the unfinished business of liberation, rooted in centuries of colonial dispossession and apartheid engineering. Despite three decades of democracy, racialised inequality persists as the defining feature of our society, with black people bearing the disproportionate burden across every measurable dimension of human development.

The following 15 statistics, drawn from official and credible sources, illustrate the depth of this crisis in comparison to white poverty, underscoring why targeted intervention is urgent.

1. Agricultural land ownership: the 2017 Land Audit Report (still the most recent official baseline) shows whites own 72% of individually held agricultural land, black Africans 4%.
2. Life expectancy gap proxy (private healthcare reliance): the same medical aid disparity above translates into white South Africans enjoying roughly 10 additional years of life expectancy, according to actuarial studies.
3. Child hunger: Stats SA 2023: 27% of black children went hungry in the past year, compared with under 1% of white children. 
4. Unemployment rate: in the third quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate among black Africans was 36.0%, more than four times the 8.2% rate among whites, entrenching cycles of dependency and despair in black communities. 
5. Income poverty (upper-bound poverty line): about 58.1% of black South Africans lived below the upper-bound poverty line of R1,634 per person per month in early 2025, compared with under 5% for white South Africans, reflecting vast disparities in earning potential.  
6. Household income disparity: white-headed households earn on average five times more than black-headed households, with median annual income for whites exceeding R450,000 while black households hover around R90,000, perpetuating intergenerational wealth gaps. 
7. Multidimensional poverty: over 68% of black children experience multidimensional poverty, encompassing deprivations in education, health and living standards, versus less than 4% of white children, highlighting how poverty compounds for future generations.  
8. Formal housing access: more than 20% of black households reside in informal dwellings, compared with under 2% of white households, exposing millions to inadequate shelter and health risks. 
9. Tertiary education attainment: only 8% of black Africans aged 25 and older hold a tertiary qualification, compared to over 35% of whites, limiting economic mobility for the majority. 
10. Life expectancy at birth: life expectancy for white South Africans is estimated at about 75 years, while for black Africans it lags at about 62 years, due to unequal healthcare access and socioeconomic stressors.  
11. Food insecurity: over 25% of black households report experiencing hunger, compared to less than 3% of white households, with child stunting rates in black communities exceeding 30% in rural areas. 
12. Asset ownership (vehicles): fewer than 20% of black households own a vehicle, compared with over 70% of white households, restricting access to employment opportunities. 
13. Medical aid coverage: only 8% of black South Africans have medical aid, versus over 70% of whites, resulting in reliance on overburdened public health facilities. 
14. Land ownership: whites, comprising 7.2% of the population, own over 70% of agricultural land, while black people own less than 4%, perpetuating rural poverty. 
15. Internet access: only 12% of black households have home internet, compared with over 80% of white households, widening the digital divide in education and jobs. 
16. Child multidimensional poverty rate: 62% of all South African children live in multidimensional poverty, with black children comprising over 90% of this figure. 
17. Gini coefficient contribution: South Africa’s overall Gini of 0.63 is driven largely by racial disparities, with intra-white inequality low compared to high among blacks. 
18. Home ownership rates: over 85% of white households own their homes, compared to under 60% of black households, reflecting historical dispossession and credit access barriers. 

These statistics are not mere numbers. They represent lived realities of exclusion that demand urgent, structured interrogation.

Why a commission of inquiry on black poverty?

An inquiry into black poverty is necessary because the current approaches to poverty alleviation have failed to address its racialised and spatial dimensions. Here are nine compelling reasons why this commission is long overdue.

1. Official statistics gloss over the real and deep state of poverty in South Africa, and do not establish the reasons why people are poor. They instead aggregate data in ways that obscure racial and geographic nuances, leading to generalised policies that fail to target root causes.
2. The government does not know the nature and form of poverty in each area and its planning does not tailor-make policy responses to specific poverty conditions in specific areas, resulting in one-size-fits-all interventions that ignore localised deprivations in townships, rural areas and former homelands.
3. Apartheid’s spatial design still forces black people to live far from economic centres, spending 30-40% of their income on transport alone.
4. Existing measurements focus on income while ignoring asset poverty, health poverty, education poverty and dignity poverty that compound across generations.
5. No single government department currently maps poverty ward-by-ward, village-by-village, leaving entire districts invisible to planners.
6. Social grants, while lifesaving for 28-million people, treat symptoms and not the disease of assetlessness and exclusion from ownership.
7. Black poverty is the primary driver of crime, protests and social instability; ignoring it threatens the constitutional project itself.
8. Countries that conducted similar inquiries (Brazil’s racial equity commission, Malaysia’s Bumiputera policy review) reduced racial poverty gaps by double digits within a decade.
9. Persistent racial inequalities from apartheid continue to reproduce poverty cycles, with black people locked out of wealth accumulation despite democratic gains.
10. Existing poverty measurements underestimate multidimensional deprivations, focusing narrowly on income while ignoring health, education and asset gaps that perpetuate disadvantage.
11. There is a lack of comprehensive, disaggregated data on black poverty in informal settlements and rural provinces, hindering evidence-based planning.
12. Current interventions like social grants, while helpful, do not address structural barriers such as land reform failures and job reservation legacies.
13. Black poverty fuels social instability, crime and unrest, as seen in service delivery protests, requiring a dedicated inquiry to prevent further erosion of social cohesion.
14. International comparisons show that countries like Brazil and Malaysia used similar commissions to implement targeted redistribution, reducing inequality, South Africa lags.
15. Without such a commission, the elusive goal of eliminating poverty by 2030 will remain aspirational rhetoric.

What will distinguish the commission from others?

This proposed commission of inquiry into black poverty will be transformative, not merely investigative. Here is what will set it apart.

1. The commission will profile poverty levels in all 4,468 wards of South Africa, producing geo-coded poverty maps for precise intervention.
2. The commission will interact with and receive inputs from people impacted by poverty through public hearings in every province, in every language, with transport and childcare provided. 
3. The commission will receive expert input and recommendations from different submissions by economists, traditional leaders, faith communities, youth formations and international anti-poverty practitioners.
4. The commission will conduct case studies and comparisons with Rwanda’s Girinka programme, Vietnam’s Đổi Mới land reform, and China’s targeted poverty alleviation that lifted 800-million people in 40 years.
5. The commission will also discuss the financing models of the recommendations, including prescribed assets, wealth taxes, land redistribution models for public purposes and mineral beneficiation funds.
6. The recommendations will be binding and should be monitored by all stakeholders with quarterly parliamentary reports and civil-society scorecards.
7. All interested stakeholders will be invited to make submissions from kings to shack dwellers, political parties, civil society groups, community organisations, business associations and forums. 
8. The commission will be truly independent, commissioners chosen through public nomination and parliamentary approval, with no political party quotas.
9. It will use mobile technology and community researchers to reach areas never before consulted.
10. It will establish provincial sub-commissions so that Limpopo’s rural poverty and Gauteng’s township poverty receive distinct solutions.
11. It will produce binding implementation timelines with criminal sanctions for non-compliance by accounting officers.

South Africa stands at a crossroads where the promise of freedom remains unfulfilled for the majority. Black poverty is not an accident of history but a deliberate outcome of systems designed to exclude.

By establishing this commission of inquiry, we can move beyond superficial grants towards structural transformation that builds black wealth, restores dignity and unites the nation in shared prosperity.

South Africa should set its petty differences aside and agree on the establishment of this inquiry into black poverty. The time for action is now, lest we betray the sacrifices of generations past.

South Africa carries the shame of being the most unequal country on earth. That inequality is almost perfectly racial. Every day we delay this commission, we add another day to the suffering of the black majority who built this country with blood and bone.

The constitution commands us in section 237 to perform all constitutional obligations “without delay”. Healing the racial wound of poverty is the most urgent constitutional obligation we face. The Freedom Charter declared that “The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth”. The National Development Plan promised to eliminate poverty by 2030. Both remain slogans while black children go to bed hungry.

This is not a request. This is a demand for justice. The same parliament that established the Zondo commission in a weekend can establish this commission tomorrow. The same president who found billions for state capture inquiries can find millions for black liberation.

We call on every political party, every church, every traditional leader, every business chamber, every university, every trade union, every civic association to set aside petty differences and support the immediate establishment of the inquiry into black poverty. The black child in QwaQwa who will never see a university lecture hall because their mother cannot afford transport is more important than any election calculation.

Let the record show that on the November 12 2025, we placed this demand before the nation. Let the record further show that those who oppose it stand on the side of continued black suffering.

The establishment of this commission is long overdue. The time for excuses is over. The time for action is now. Mayibuye iAfrika!

Nyiko Floyd Shivambu, Afrika Mayibuye president

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