United Democratic Movement (UDM) Member of Parliament Nqabayomzi Kwankwa says it is discomforting that more than 20 years since South Africa attained freedom, inequality between the haves and have-nots is still glaring.

Speaking in parliament in a debate on human rights, he said government should take blame for much of these problems.

“House chair its bears repeating that 25 years into democracy-South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world because government’s redistribution policy promised a short cut prosperity to many, and have delivered that promise to a select political few which has undermined the pact of a state resource agreement. The state resources that should have been used to eradicate poverty, to reduce inequality, reduce poverty and unemployment for our people have been misappropriated to a larger extent,” says Kwankwa.

Meanwhile, the Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) Member of Parliament Phillip Mhlongo says black people are the most disadvantaged group in South Africa 25 years after the new democratic dispensation.

Mhlongo says the evidence of this reality is in the living conditions of the black majority, “black people everywhere in this country have no human rights to speak. It is black people who stay in the infested and flea-ridden shacks.”