It says that in South Africa, the continent’s economic superpower, the inequality is particularly staggering –with just two men owning the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the over 50 million population.
“The inequality in South Africa is particularly staggering: the richest 10 per cent of the country’s population (3.7 million people) had an income of $36 billion while the poorest 50 per cent (19 million people) had an income of only $9 billion,” says the report.It adds that this means that some 3.7 million mainly White people earned four times more than 19 million mainly Black people.
Going by the report, the richest 10 per cent of the South African population had an income of $69 billion by 2011, while the poorest 50 per cent had an income of $11 billion. Five million still mainly White people were now earning six times more than 25 million mainly Black people, it notes.
The report further reveals that two White men – Johan Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer – owned the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 per cent of the population last year, even as the group noted that this referred to “asset and not income inequality”.
It says getting hold of the proper level of taxes will be “vital” if world leaders are to meet their goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030, as set last September.
The aid group meanwhile reported yesterday – the eve of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos – that the richest one per cent of the world’s population now own more than the rest of humankind combined.
“Runaway inequality has created a world where 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population – a figure that has fallen from 388 just five years ago,” the anti-poverty agency said in its report, published ahead of the annual gathering of the world’s financial and political elites in Davos.
The report, entitled “An Economy for the 1 per cent”, states that women are disproportionately affected by the global inequality.
One of the other key trends behind rising inequality set out in the Oxfam report is the falling share of national income going to workers in almost all developed and most developing countries. The majority of low paid workers around the world are women.
World leaders have increasingly talked about the need to tackle inequality, but “the gap between the richest and the rest has widened dramatically in the past 12 months”, reports Oxfam.
Oxfam’s prediction, made ahead of last year’s Davos meeting, that the richest one percent would soon own more than the rest of us, “actually came true in 2015,” it added – a year earlier.
The number of people living in extreme poverty halved between 1990 and 2010 but the average annual income of the poorest 10 per cent has risen by less than $3-a-year in the past quarter of a century. This represents an increase in individuals’ income of less than one percent a year, according to the report.
More than 40 heads of state and government will attend the Davos forum, which was set to open late today and end on January 23.
Those heading to the Swiss resort town for the high-level annual gathering also include 2,500 “leaders from business and society”, the WEF said in an earlier statement.
WEF founder Klaus Shwab has said the theme – the Fourth Industrial Revolution – “refers to the fusion of technologies across the physical, digital and biological worlds which is creating entirely new capabilities and dramatic impacts on political, social and economic systems”.
Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, who will also attend Davos having co-chaired last year’s event, said: “It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world’s population owns no more than a few dozen super-rich people who could fit onto one bus.”
World leaders’ concerns about the escalating inequality crisis have “so far not translated into concrete action – the world has become a much more unequal place and the trend is accelerating”, she warned.
She said that, as a priority, Oxfam demands an end to the era of tax havens which has seen the increasing use of offshore centres to avoid paying taxes.
“This has denied governments valuable resources needed to tackle poverty and inequality,” the Oxfam report notes.
Byanyima challenged those attending the Davos meeting “to play their part in ending the era of tax havens, which is fuelling economic inequality and preventing hundreds of millions of people lifting themselves out of poverty”.
Oxfam says that 53 of the 62 people believed to hold as much wealth as the poorest 50 per cent are men and just nine are female, “highlighting that women are ill-represented even at the highest levels”.
Prominent Davos guests include British Prime Minister David Cameron, US Vice President Joe Biden, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
President Mauricio Marci of Argentina, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras are also due to attend.
Oxfam, an international confederation of 17 organisations working together with partners and local communities in more than 90 countries, says it had calculated the wealth of the richest 62 people using Forbes’ billionaires list.
The aid group is a global movement of millions of people who share the belief that, in a world rich in resources, poverty isn’t inevitable.
Accordingly, concerned that one person in three in the world lives in poverty, it is determined to change that world by mobilising the power of people against poverty.
• Additional report by M&G Africa
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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