s beginnings as a democracy

South Africa’s beginnings as a democracy are rooted in the Truth ; Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that followed the 1994 elections, attempting to investigate (but arguably failing to do so) the systemic exploitation of the country’s “extended colonialism” (Terreblance 2002, 371). Many argue that, as the TRC failed to address the role and profiteering of the private industry during Apartheid, thus ignoring the implications for South Africa’s economy in a post-Apartheid era (Ibid., 371-72). At the very beginning of the new democratic state, South Africa’s unemployment rate nearly doubled from its rate in 1970; most unemployment came from the gross unavailability of positions in the formal sector, and potential employees lack of skills qualifying them for such positions (Ibid., 371-73). Therefore, a striking amount of South Africans have since turned, and continue to turn, to positions and opportunities in the informal sector (Ibid.).