The fruit sellers, shop operators and kindergarten owners of this black township are still waiting for the financial rewards of a democratic South Africa.
Their dreams of working for big companies, of getting bank loans for their businesses, of breaking out of economic apartheid remain unfulfilled.
Part of the problem, analysts say, is the unrealistic hopes that blacks had for how long it would take to broaden an economy straitjacketed during the racist apartheid era that ended with the country's first all-race elections in 1994.
France Mohlomi, 30, thinks there's nothing unrealistic about his hopes.
With a university degree and a two-year internship under his belt, he thought a big advertising firm would hire him. When that did not happen, he went to a bank seeking to borrow money to start a silk-screening company.
"They checked my business plan. They said `Ahhh.' They turned me down," he said of his attempt a few years ago. "If you don't have a house, they don't give you a loan. They call it a risky thing."
Mohlomi works as an assistant at a fruit stand on a dusty street in Soweto. For 10 hours of work seven days a week, he takes home about 1,000 rand a month, or about US$125. This isn't what was promised.
Heading to its victory in the 1994 election, the African National Congress promised ``a better life for all,'' and politicians eagerly fueled the hopes of the poor that financial security and equality lay ahead.
Seven years later, President Thabo Mbeki describes the country as two lands -- one rich and white, the other black and poor. The average annual income for whites is 51,000 rands (US$6,300); for blacks, it's 7,600 rand (US$950).
Unemployment among blacks is growing -- four of every 10 blacks don't have jobs, six times the rate for whites. More than a half million jobs have been lost since 1994, most of them in mining and agriculture, which employ many unskilled blacks. Sixty-five percent of nonwhites live in poverty.
Blacks make up 78 percent of the population but earned just 43 percent of the national income last year. Whites, 11 percent of the population, took in 44 percent, a University of South Africa study said.
``If we don't empower [blacks] economically, even the democracy we are talking about is very threatened,'' said Peter Karungu, an economic consultant.
There are some successes. The small black middle class is growing, and almost a quarter of the money earned by South Africa's highest-income group -- people with yearly salaries above 246,721 rands (US$30,700) -- goes to blacks, according to the University of South Africa study.
Some blacks, including Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale, a director of ABSA Bank and GoldFields Ltd, are among South Africa's most influential businessmen. But change is coming much slower than many people expected.
The government has tried to boost blacks' share of the economy by giving black-owned firms an edge in bidding for state contracts. All medium and large firms are required to adopt plans for making their staff more reflective of the population. Land redistribution and sales of state monopolies are structured to favor blacks.
The strategies have not worked well enough, even the government concedes. The programs were uncoordinated and unfocused and the country expected too much help from white business and international investors, said Andy Brown, a researcher for a commission created to redress economic inequities.
In a report being studied by the government, the Black Economic Empowerment Commission recommended legislation require the financial sector, pension funds and unions to invest at least 10 percent of their assets in ``areas of national priority.''
The government-appointed commission, headed by Ramaphosa, also called for rural development and faster land redistribution, a transformation of the banking sector to make it more accessible, more preferences for black firms in government purchases and better education for blacks.
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