EWN reports that trade unions on Thursday said they were not surprised by a new report from the World Bank that found South Africa was the most unequal country in the world.

SA was top of the list of 164 countries in the World Bank’s global poverty database, followed by Namibia. The report found that 10% of SA’s population owned more than 80% of the country’s wealth. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said the new data was not surprising given the high unemployment rate in SA and black women were bearing the brunt. The World Bank’s report found that the sharp inequality in land ownership also contributed to perpetuating the historically high levels of income inequality. Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said government should pull up its socks and implement initiatives like a housing scheme for public servants to deal with the shortage of land ownership in the country. “Its not that a question of giving people land, it’s a question of giving them a core settlement support. If you settle people into a piece of land, you need to ensure those people have the means, the skills and the resources to work that land,” he pointed out.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mia Lindeque at EWN

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