Black Professionals Institute Lecture and Panel Discussion

The Black Professionals Institute (BPI) held its annual lecture and panel discussion on Tuesday evening, 4 February 2025.

The annual lecture was delivered by Prof. Pali Lehohla (former Statistician General, who spoke on the topic “Whither a democratic dividend or demographic disaster: What is to be done?”

The lecture was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Mr Mike Siluma (Deputy Editor Sunday Times). The panellists were Dr Theuns Eloff (Academic and Director of Companies), Mr Daryl Swanepoel (CEO, Inclusive Society Instiute), Dr Kefiloe Matsineng (National Planning Commission and Dr Nthabiseng Moleko (University of Stellenbosch).

Mr Swanepoel core message was that the current  GDP growth was insufficient to accommodate sufficient job growth to deal with the employment backlogs and population growth. No amount of social engineering without concomitant economic growth will alleviate the inequality or deal with the jobs backlog. A all-of-society focus should be on economic growth ‘uber alles’.