Poverty is colourless and black and white people need to work together to eradicate it, African National Congress treasurer-general Mathews Phosa said on Friday.

"The ANC thinks that poverty is colourless, there is no such thing as white poverty. There is poverty," he told journalists following his address to the Afrikaner Poverty Conference in Centurion.

He said the ruling party would draw on the expertise of other party members to find a solution to solve the problem. Improving skills transfer was one such way of doing this.

"We want blacks and whites in partnership in a balanced manner, let blacks teach whites and vice versa. It is not a racial thing, we must kill that racial thing."

Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder agreed that poverty was colourless, but that there were different reasons for the advent of white poverty. He said affirmative action had played a role. Mulder said surely the aim of affirmative action was not to create another group of poor people.

"If you look at race alone it is going to cause more
discrimination."

He said it was not fair that a wealthy and advantaged black child was granted a bursary to a tertiary institution, because he or she met the racial requirements, while a poor white child could not.

"It's just not common sense."

Mulder said Phosa was a man who, like the new leadership of the ANC, could bring common sense to the debate.

"[Phosa] is one of the ANC leaders with the best understanding of the cultural issues of Afrikaners."

He said the party was upbeat about Phosa's positive attitude, but said that the proof of the pudding was in the eating.

"There needs to be less ideology and more pragmatism, I get some of that from the new leadership... Let's hope that this attitude stays and remains."

Phosa earlier told the conference -- which was hosted by the FF Plus and included Members of Parliament as well as welfare and church groups --that political reconciliation was one of the party's priority initiatives.

He said the FF Plus had also followed the practice of non-confrontation and the ANC appreciated its input, advice and expertise.

"It is an unusual act of reconciliation of one party to invite a representative of another party to participate in discussions on how to combat the problem of poverty alleviation."

He said in the political mix of good service delivery, economic growth and a safe country and region the Afrikaners had an "extremely important" role to play.

Phosa also said that the government needed to face the inconvenient truth regarding the "dismal failure" of the land claims process, in particular in Limpopo.

"Seventy percent of land handed over to black hands initially ended up in dismal failure."

He said this had left more people jobless than it created employment and had also negatively affected food security.

"The partnership between black and white farmers... can pull the wagon through the drift," he said using the Afrikaans saying.

Phosa reiterated earlier remarks that white expertise needed to be returned to government administration.

"The exodus of white expertise from the public sector happened too fast and there are key areas in which we need the knowledge, experience and skills of white specialists."

Phosa said he once again extended his hand to the FF Plus leader, his "co-Afrikaner", so that together the parties could make the country a better to live in.

"I as an Afrikaner would like to close with a well-known slogan in our beautiful language... and one which I would very much like to hear from more South Africans and especially leaders: ek wil, ek sal, ek kan (I will, I shall, I can)."

Phosa then handed over a published book of his own poems, written in Afrikaans, to Mulder.

The book is entitled "Deur die Oog van 'n Naald", translated as "Through the Eye of a Needle".