Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Magkoba was in Grahamstown Tuesday 28 October to officially hand over a donation to Rhodes Business School, which his trust has selected to host an annual lecture on values based leadership.
Meanwhile, Makgoba denounced corruption in a lecture at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University on Monday, saying South Africa is surviving, but not thriving.
Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Magkoba was in Grahamstown Tuesday 28 October to officially hand over a donation to Rhodes Business School, which his trust has selected to host an annual lecture on values based leadership.
Meanwhile, Makgoba denounced corruption in a lecture at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University on Monday, saying South Africa is surviving, but not thriving.
Makgoba Tuesday handed over the donation from The Archbishop Thabo Cecil Makgoba Development Trust to Vice-Chancellor Sizwe Mabizela for the lecture series to begin in 2016.
The trust aims to address social and economic challenges, such as poverty, inequality and unemployment and to provide educational opportunities, skills and entrepreneurial development as well as promote health awareness.
In a lecture entitled 'South Africa's New Struggle' at NMMU the previous day, Magkoba said that although the country holds the best constitution in Africa, the principles of democracy are challenged each day.
"Despite two decades of progress, we have to acknowledge that there is widespread consensus that for the most part, our country is still not healthy, inequality is everywhere and there is an almost toxic pollution of public confidence and trust," Magkoba was quoted as saying in a media statement.
"The levels of inequality in our society are shocking. There are huge differences between the development of the wealthy parts of our cities and that of nearly everywhere else," Magkoba said.
Magkoba slammed initiatives such as the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) saying that such projects do not close the income gap, but rather contribute to inequality.
He implored citizens to eliminate the desperate conditions people live in, or risk creating a potential explosion of anger.
He said the Department of Human Settlements last year reported a backlog of about 2.1 million houses and added that about 2.5 million houses still don't have proper sanitation facilities.
In his talk, part of the Beyers Naude Memorial Lecture Series, Magkoba also criticized the church, saying that the courage that Naude showed has been trampled upon. He said the church has failed to speak out when it sees that other political institutions are failing.
Magkoba recalled the words of the late Afrikaner nationalist-turned democracy hero's sentiments that it was wrong to think that because South Africa has a new government and constitution, it has solved its political problems and there is no prophetic role for the Church.
"I think such a perception is a very serious mistake,” he quoted Naude as saying.
"The current threat to our democracy is the insidious cancer of corruption," Magkoba concluded.
"An alarming number of people are venturing down a path that promises short-term financial gain, embracing opportunities to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of their community and our nation.
I cannot say it any more simply than that: corruption is anti-democracy."
