PATRICK BULGER | The Sting: BEE is too important to be left to the ANC alone

President Cyril Ramaphosa says SA needs more black economic empowerment (BEE) to transform the economy and deracialise its ownership, and who in their right mind would disagree? What we don’t need, though, and what could kill any chance for a more inclusive economy based on modest prosperity, is more ANC BEE.

It’s not just that BEE, in the form that it has been abused and misused by the ANC to grease its patronage networks, has cost the economy and citizens in compromised services and infrastructural decay, as we heard at the Zondo commission. As important is that BEE has poisoned our politics and made it an unseemly and sometimes deadly scramble for the powers to grant patronage or even indulge in outright corruption. It’s a threat to our democracy.

This was plain at the ANC’s Ekurhuleni conference, held in the leafy confines of Johannesburg’s far northern suburbs, at what Gauteng premier David Makhura described as a “war zone’’, with displays of weaponry that wouldn’t have been out of place at the recent US National Rifle Association jamboree in Texas. Amid brazen shows of force and implicit violence, and the proceedings reduced to a struggle over credentials and positions, it is clear these posts are a life and death matter for some in the ruling party.

The big prize in these battles in the ANC is billions in state contracts, especially because all government tenders are subject to BEE criteria that are too often manipulated and brazenly interfered with at political level to produce a desired outcome. Invariably, this fixing for political ends benefits the ANC and connected individuals, who operate in a bubble of impunity.

To expedite BEE, Ramaphosa has appointed an advisory council of experts to give it some muscle and presumably defuse criticism he faced from the likes of the Black Business Council (BBC), which gave him a hard time recently, claiming the ANC government had not been good for black business.

Nor has it been that good for many others, but it looks like Ramaphosa’s heard the call of the BBC loud and clear, appointing its outspoken CEO, businessman Kganki Matabane, at the top of the list of 14 names. He’s been a critic of the ANC government’s apparent foot-dragging when it comes to black business big and small, and one imagines Ramaphosa is aware that a fallout with organised black business could be politically costly. He will be hoping he has averted that, but he’s more likely raised expectations he may battle to satisfy.

It’s hard to avoid the impression that the appointment of the advisory council, with Matabane featuring, is a sop to black business, a move that is in the style of how Ramaphosa operates, appeasing the constituencies, promising much, but delivering little.

The key to successful BEE is to remove it from the political realm. Go further and put it in the constitution as a goal that should be pursued for all our futures.

At the heart of the problem, though, is the extent to which BEE has become a party-political programme. That, coupled with a weak bureaucracy that seems unable or unwilling to raise its voice when spending decisions are made, leaves politicians effectively in charge of huge amounts of public funds.

While implementing a self-serving version of BEE, the ANC may keep a few happy in the business lobby, but that will hardly appeal to the voting masses, most of whom don’t really care about who owns what business, but are much more interested in employment opportunities, prices and quality of products. This is especially true in the case of public services, where people expect clean administration and the timely delivery of goods and services. Alongside consumers, business, including black business, is just one more constituency and its interests shouldn’t be regarded as having special privilege.

But there is a way for BEE to work and its success could go a long way to determining whether we as a country have a future that will be worth anything. The key to successful BEE is to remove it from the political realm. Go further and put it in the constitution as a goal that should be pursued for all our futures. It shouldn’t be in the gift of a political party.

Ramaphosa’s BEE council would be a much more worthwhile endeavour if it were to be given real teeth to implement and provide strategic insights into the broad thrust of BEE, as well as overseeing its effectiveness and proposing changes where necessary. If it didn’t have skin in the game, as they say.

If BEE is an imperative then it’s equally important that all our political parties are obliged by the constitution and relevant legislation to make a commitment to a minimum raft of BEE goals that are measurable and can be adjusted over the years as experience and events shape thinking and practice. It must be seen to be working for all.

Like the land issue, BEE is too important to be left to politicians to decide, least of all to provide a framework to assign contracts to mates, to adjust tender documents to suit the connected and repeatedly reward companies that do not deliver on the work paid for. After the strategic input and direction that politics is meant to provide, actual spending decisions should be the responsibility of officials who decide according to a set of clear and transparent criteria who gets what contracts. Such decisions must take into account the applicants’ track record on completing projects timeously and within budget. In pursuit of state contracts, white business should have to incubate new businesses and partner with black-owned companies, but at all times cost and performance must also be taken into account.

Give black business preference, by all means, but don’t compromise on quality and value for money.

Some will say this will take a lot of bureaucracy which we can’t afford. But can we afford a repeat of the looting in respect of government contracts that has taken place?

BEE should not be a political gift to dispense largesse and create another few connected millionaires. It is for the whole country, not just the ANC.