Mandela slams BEE proposal

The call to exclude coloured and Indian South Africans from BEE tenders worth more than R50-million is "ill-timed, poorly conceived and flies in the face of the constitutional provision for redress", says ANC MP Mandla Mandela.

The grandson of late former president Nelson Mandela said the proposed changes to the BEE policy also contradicted "the ANC's Mangaung resolution for radical economic transformation for all who were historically disadvantaged".

Mandela, who converted to Islam before marrying his fourth wife last year, was responding to a proposal sent to the Treasury by KwaZulu-Natal economic development MEC Sihle Zikalala in August.

Zikalala's proposal purportedly aims to "benefit black Africans".

The Mvezo chief didn't mince his words, condemning the idea and warning against "myopic revisionism" and called the idea "a bird-brained" scheme, coming barely a week after Forbes released its list of the 20 wealthiest South Africans containing only two black people (incidentally, both African), with no black people of any description ranking in the top five.

"The proposal flies in the face of the significant contribution that other sectors of the historically disadvantaged have made to the struggle for freedom, justice and democracy," Mandela said.

"It comes two weeks after the commemoration of the murder of Imam Abdullah Haron and in the same week the court delivered its verdict that Comrade Ahmed Timol was killed by the security branch of the apartheid state.

"How insensitive and crass can you get to imply that the sacrifice of the Indian and coloured communities were somehow lesser?"

Mandela named other Indian and coloured ANC members for the significant contributions they made to the struggle.