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I am delighted to be here this evening to participate in this panel discussion on such an important topic. The answer to the question you have posed: ‘what will it take to realize economic freedom in our lifetime’, as with many like it, will decide the destiny of our nation in this century for good or bad.

I will preface my opening remarks by saying that whoever we are, we all have a responsibility to consider this question. This requires open minds, honesty and intellectual curiosity. No one who cares about South Africa can shy away from it.

Today, many South Africans feel alienated from each other. On the one side are those who have jobs, homes, and the prospect of rising incomes and a better future. On the other side are the millions of poor South Africans who remains excluded from the mainstream economy. This inequality is the ill that underlines all the others.

Inequality of opportunity splinters along the racial lines of our history of discrimination and prejudice.

Inequality of opportunity makes it difficult for South Africans to understand the lives others lead. It imprisons people in the circumstances of their birth; dividing them from one another in schools, at work, in the conditions of their bodies, and, most tellingly, in the openness of their minds.

Inequality of opportunity erodes trust among South Africans, as was so tragically demonstrated in Marikana. Mine-workers there felt that the rules of the game were rigged against them.

And this mistrust is not limited to the Lonmin mine, nor to platinum mining, or to the mining sector in general. Across the economy, labour relations are increasingly strained as huge trade unions lose touch with ordinary workers as they pursue perks and political influence.

People often talk casually about the perception that 'money knows no colour'. Many of the world’s most prosperous cities - from New York to Mumbai, London to Lagos, and Sao Paulo to Johannesburg - are cosmopolitan, diverse and open. Their doors have long been open to immigrants and people from vastly different backgrounds, all seeking opportunities to make their lives better. Cosmopolitan cities like these are places where people don’t ask who you are and where you are from - just where you are going.

Cities like there are a demonstration of the principle that equality of opportunity bolsters people's confidence; it takes the edge off that crippling sense of alienation which can afflict modern life. I am not romanticising these cities. Life can be hard, and the days long. But, in contexts such as these, it becomes harder and harder for the contestation around access to resources to be framed in racial or nationalist narratives.

People who feel like equals tend to behave like equals. This is why equality of opportunity is the best way to achieve reconciliation.

In this context, binding the wounds of post-apartheid South Africa means that equality of opportunity is as important as the pioneering work of reconciliatory leadership and initiatives the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). They are, in fact, interlinked.

The truth is that the majority of South Africa’s people in 2012 have a legitimate claim to economic redress. Economic inequality is wider than it was in 1994. If we do not redress this, reconciliation - how we relate to one another - is put at risk.

It flows from this that economic freedom, which we precisely define as equality of access to economic opportunity, will only be attained with large scale growth and job creation.

Some people like to talk about "redistribution" as if it is an instant cure for our society’s ills. Julius Malema recently led a march of jobless youth to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), his pretext being that if JSE listed companies "gave" their profits to jobless young people, this would provide economic freedom.

As demagogues do, Mr Malema falsely posits economic freedom as a zero sum game. The truth is that without growth, redress and reconciliation will be consigned to oblivion. We would just be slicing up a shrinking pie.

The solution cannot be to make the rich poorer. It must be to make the rules of the game fairer, and to extend opportunities for those who cannot access them today.

The DA understands this. Racial nationalists like the Freedom Front+ and the ANC simply don’t get it. We marched with young people to COSATU House in support of the Youth Wage Subsidy (YWS) because we know, and young people know better, that economic freedom can only be attained through growth and jobs.

Our Constitution embodies this truth. This is why both property rights and redress measures, like land restitution, are precisely spelled out within it. Those who use populist rhetoric about "expropriation without compensation" and "mine nationalisation" fail to grasp this. Or, worse, they simply don't care. Both mind sets are inflammatory.

The push of the DA’s Growth and Jobs Plan is to create jobs by building many new job creators. It says that we cannot fix South Africa’s economy where it is broken until we create the wealth to invest in education and health.

To build this society requires changes to our economy that will challenge the status quo. We will need to break down the monopolies that keep the cost of living high.

We need to promote greater competition in the economy so that the cost of things like food and clothing comes down.

Building this society requires breaking down the high costs and bureaucratic red tape facing strangling would-be-entrepreneurs and small businesses. And it will mean making it easier for people to access credit so that they can grow and prosper.

Most new jobs in the world today are created by small businesses and innovative companies. This is also how we will dramatically cut youth unemployment.

There is much more that needs to be done to build an inclusive economy.

We want to distribute shares in the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and release ‘dead capital’ by putting financial assets into the hands of poor South Africans.

Hundreds of thousands of South Africans must be enabled to make financially sound bids to acquire individual or collective shares in SOES, and in this way, become real shareholders in South Africa Limited.

We want to establish a dedicated fund to support Farm Equity Schemes so that commercial farmers can sell stakes in their operations to farm workers on an individual or a workers' trust basis.

We also want to incentivise employee share ownership schemes by making 50% of the value of shares awarded to qualifying employees tax deductible to the employer.

All of these proposals have one big idea in common: to swing open the gates that keep millions of our countrymen locked out of the formal economy.

Unfolding within the context of redress and reconciliation, the DA is committed to the purpose of Broad Based-Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) which complements our Jobs and Growth Plan. Nearly every South African agrees with the restorative thrust of tools like B-BBEE as a means of effecting economic redress. The problem is that, too often, broad-based BEE has become politically contaminated.

At the root of this problem is, we believe, an overemphasis on the “ownership” aspect of B-BBEE; one which has tilted in favour of rewarding well-connected insiders over innovative outsiders.

The DA believes that the solution to this impasse is to sharpen the definitions and alter the weightings of the B-BBEE scorecard. A streamlined scorecard should line up B-BBEE with the National Development Plan (NDP). Empowerment of any kind, after all, will only work within a growing and well-educated economy.

This is why we propose, among several other measures, increasing the weighting of the socio-economic development component of the scorecard, and we will push for extra points to be awarded for job creation and skills training. In addition, the DA’s alternative scorecard would support job creation through the proposed youth wage subsidy programme.

It is simple: new jobs are the only way to lift millions of people out of poverty. New jobs have an economic multiplying effect because they increase purchasing power in a golden cycle of growth.

This is how, in the end, we will close the gap between the insiders and the outsiders. Redress is not a zero sum game as political parties the Freedom Front+ and the ANC like to claim. In fact, both parties mirror each other in their mobilization of racial nationalist rhetoric. This is apt, given that they also govern together.

Responsible leadership speaks the truth openly and boldly. The truth is that prosperity can only be achieved through growth. The government cannot generate economic prosperity. Its role is to create the right policy framework for growth to be inclusive.

Inequality of economic opportunity is choking democracy when our problems no longer seem like they can be solved through collective action.

Inequality of economic opportunity provokes racial anger that rewards populists, like Mr Malema, and marginalises real change-makers.

Inequality of economic opportunity mocks the South African dream of reconciliation and redress; one that once inspired an entire world – and still can.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu powerfully reminded us on Monday evening that a nation of insiders and outsiders carries a huge social cost? We need principled leadership to bridge the gap between insiders and outsiders.

Authentic leadership will require the telling of hard truths if we are to build a new and inclusive nation.

Thank you.