Desmond Tutu

 Special to the NNPA from the Global Information Network

Desmond Tutu further created a ruckus with the suggestion that cabinet ministers sell their expensive ministerial cars to show they cared for the plight of the poor“The old haves continue to have and they’ve been joined by some new haves,” Tutu said.  “But most of our people remain have nots.”

The wealth tax found support from, among others, constitutional law commentator Professor Pierre de Vos and ex-apartheid-era deputy minister and MP Tertius Delport.

Writing on his blog, Constitutionally Speaking, De Vos observed: “Not only is a wealth tax on white South Africans constitutionally valid… “The tax would be a small gesture towards reconciliation and redress.”

“Had I been born Black and poor, I almost certainly would not have gone to university and I would almost certainly never have been a law professor at the University of Cape Town, earning quite a nice salary, thank you.”

The reparations tax was vigorously opposed by the FW de Klerk Foundation. Former President de Klerk called the proposed tax unfair and racist.

In a statement that resembled the former justification for apartheid, de Klerk said: “We cannot accept the dangerous idea of racial guilt – or the very unchristian notion that some South Africans are morally superior to others simply because of the race to which they belong.”