As the African national Congress continues to splinter, and our Laughing Death president and his Gupta mates fight for control of the Treasury, the race card is being played more and more often. Not only by the ANC but also by the Economic Freedom Front.

This week, a spokesman for the governing party claimed that, after 22 years since the democratic elections, white companies still dominated the economy. This was disputed immediately by Moaletsi Mbeki – a Harvard-trained economist– who provided evidence to the contrary. With the spread of Black Economic Empowerment companies and the rise in the number of young black entrepreneurs, it was no longer true. Nor was the myth that there were still more middle-class whites than blacks.

Mbeki, younger brother of former president Thabo Mbeki, commented that the race card was about the only one the ANC had left.

The EFF got into the act by attacking the “white” Democratic Alliance government in the Western Cape for not providing enough low-cost housing for blacks.

Again, the truth has been ignored. Up until March, 2013, the Cape Town-based administration had created 94 000 housing units and sites at a cost of almost R5 billion and estimated that it would have to spent R2 billion a year fromthen on to cater for the growing number of squatters.

The influx of new inhabitants in the Western Cape, mostly from the Transkei and Ciskei, had been a problem since the start of the New South Africa. Many hundeds of Transkeians and Ciskeians, told by the ANC that there was a new life awaiting them in the Western Cape, were bussed in and dumped. They were to be voting fodder for the ANC.

Many ended up in unlikely places like Hout Bay where the only industry, fishing, had for years been the preserve of the local Coloured population.

The Cape Town municipality had no option but to designate an area for them on the slopes of Hout Bay, an almost jobless domain that has grown hugely since then.

Cape Town experienced a similar influx. By 1996, the population of Khayelitsha – the biggest black township – had mushroomed to 250 000. The census of 2011 revealed that the figure had expanded to 400 000. And the squatter perimeter has spread substantially since.

In 1996, my friend Patrick Lawrence went to speak to some of the newcomers. Most didn’t even have the fare to get into Cape Town to look for work. Even today, a vast number of people living in Cape Town’s townships and squatter camps do not have jobs.

Effectively, they have become migrants in their own country.

Of course, the root of the problem continues to be the lack of jobs in the Eastern Cape, the Transkei and Ciskei particularly.

Awful though the motives were behind the old Bantustans – to entice as many blacks as possible back to their homelands – they might have left one beneficial effect. Local industrialisation. And thus job opportunities.

That, indeed, was part of the Nationalist government’s plan. At the time of self-government for the Transkei and Ciskei, foreign investors and developers were offered attractive incentives. A ready and cheap labour market.  Relaxed labour laws. Low taxes.

The plan worked for a while. But then corruption came to the fore.

In 1970, seven years into self-government, I interviewed the Transkeian chief minister’s brother, George Matanzima. I asked him how the economy was doing.

“Well,” he said. “Do you know that Umtata (the capital) now has the biggest manual telephone exchange in Southern Africa?” Manual exchange.

I said I didn’t but asked how the proposed hydro-electric scheme on the Umzimvubu River was proceeding. Kaiser Matanzima had proposed the project as a matter of priority and the Nat government had thrown millions of rands at it.

George Matanzima admitted that the scheme hadn’t yet got off the ground. And it never has.

A year after the first democratic election, I drove down to the Transkei. The entire economy was a wreck. Emergency aid of R8 million was being pumped into 28 Transkeian municipalities to save them from total collapse. One of the biggest industries, the Magwa Tea Corporation, had lost R30 million over the years and needed R25 million more just to keep going.

In Umtata, my home town, only two factories seemed to be in operation. One produced barbed wire. Manually, like the old telephone exchange. One man held a length of wire while another man cut a thinner gauge wire into small pieces to create the barbs.

In September, 1987, the South African government had appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of serious corruption by the Transkei leaders. The commission found that, after dealings of doubtful legality, the Transkei government had lost R45 million through money transfers abroad. It blamed George Matanzima, then chief minister, and the president, Tudor Ndamase.

South African auditors I spoke to in Umtata, who were going through the territory’s accounts, had even more damning information. More than a billion rands in treasury bills issued to the Transkei government appeared to be missing. They simple could not be found.

That was the bad debt baggage that accompanied the Transkei when it became part of the new Eastern Cape. The Ciskei’s contribution was somewhat better. But both are still millstones around the neck of what used to be the Eastern Province and Border.

And yet the potential in the two territories that the apartheid government once tried to exploit for its own devious purposes still exists. Outside of droughts, the area has a fair rainfall; labour is there for the training; and there is easy access to two of South Africa’s ports, Port Elizabeth and East London.

Had the Umzimvubu hydro-electric scheme not fallen foul of misspending and theft, there would have been more than adequate electricity.

The laws that apply to foreign investors would have to be relaxed as indeed they should right around the country. But substantial economic growth is not only possible in these former Bantustans. It is vitally necessary.

And soon.