Having met communities affected by poverty across the country, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane said South Africa was in “a state of emergency”.
“The anger, the frustration and the feeling of hopelessness especially among young people is a recipe for possible disaster,” he said.
Official figures suggest around 25% of South Africans are unemployed.
“Never before in the history of South Africa have such large gatherings of people consistently said ‘we have no food,'” said the archbishop.
“In a country where huge amounts can be spent on [the 2010] soccer world cup or increasing salaries, it is unthinkable that so many can go without food.”
Speaking to journalists in Cape Town on Wednesday, he challenged government ministers to go with him, village by village, to tell people what would be done to help them kick-start and maintain agricultural production to feed their families.
Poverty Hearings
The former archbishop is the president and founder of African Monitor – a group of civil society organisations that toured all nine South African provinces to mark the 10th anniversary of the National Poverty Hearings in Cape Town.
The five key issues emerging from meetings with residents of the country’s most impoverished areas were:
- the deepening impact of extreme hunger across the country
- widespread unemployment leading to a lack of access to resources
- the prevalence of diseases such as Aids and tuberculosis and the lack of primary health care
- widespread dependence on inadequate social security
- frustration at government inaction