Among the many dates that most South Africans who were alive at the time will never forget are 2 February 1990, when then President FW de Klerk repealed apartheid legislation and announced the unbanning of political parties and the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, and 11 February 1990, when Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison a free man.

Four years later, all adult South Africans were able to vote in our founding democratic elections on 27 April 1994. With the iconic, reconciliation evangelist Madiba at the helm, South Africa justly basked in international glory. Throughout his presidency, we enjoyed our newly-found status as “a miracle nation of God” and the economy – which had been in the doldrums for years because of punitive international sanctions – began to grow.

We continued to enjoy international adulation during the next five years that followed, even as we began to grapple with some of the considerable challenges that faced our country, such as transformation and the need to make our economy inclusive of those who had long remained on its periphery. Internationally, we punched way beyond our weight on various fora. 

Regrettably, over the past few years we have not showered ourselves with glory. Serious mistakes – among them the failure to treat HIV-positive individuals and contain AIDS during the Mbeki era – were made. The worst period by far has been during the Zuma presidency when corruption went out of control, the quality of appointments in the public sector was questionable and the economy tanked.

So, our first 25 years of democracy have been a mixed bag. There has been more good than bad, but the next five years are likely to be the most crucial in our efforts to eradicate the ills of the past decade and to rehabilitate the country. In this process, business must be seen to be playing its part as a meaningful partner that has fully embraced transformation and leverages it in the best interest of the country.