In 2000, leaders from 189 nations signed on to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) designed to significantly the reduction of  global poverty and disease

Since 2000, tangible results prove that dramatic progress is possible when developing countries and donor governments fulfil their ends of the bargain. But despite these successes, much more needs to be done to ensure that MDG are met by 2015, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which is the region farthest off-track from reaching the goals.

The same political parties have been in power in South Africa since the global decision to make poverty history.

How do the South African politicians demonstrate through their own lifestyles that they are prepared to share wealth with the poor?

One only needs to read the local news on government and political spending to find that answer.   If the government leaders cut their own wasteful spending then it would not have been necessary to tax the 25 percent of citizens, with sustainable jobs, into the poverty bracket.

If BBE companies were being built from the grassroots up, instead of hijacking the employment selection of profitable companies, the 75% of black managed companies would have been a reality and not just a dream.

One can not exchange experience or education for skin pigmentation.

The failure of poverty reduction lies in the fact that the government wanted to steal white positions instead of building international trading centres.    The money was there to do it.   There was a time when the world poured cash into African countries, until they found out that it all ended up in the hands of executives while the poor grew poorer.

It is time to reflect on past failures on the home front;   the failures of the last twenty years.   Think how much money would there have been if companies did not move overseas to escape government interferences.

How much money and expertise would there have been if people were not made redundant while they were in their prime just to make way to empower other with less experience.

It is time that executives realize that decisions do not need to be made in expensive restaurants or in private jets.    Much money can be saved if the system of video conferencing is utilized to its fullest.

Perhaps we can, from now on, calculate spending, like the cost of executive dinners, with the number of basic wage packets spent on one sitting, instead of just considering dollars and pounds.     We need to see actions in perspective.      

The penny has to drop in such a way that each leader evaluates his own financial footprint.

RW