Let’s not confuse the incompetence in implementing with the correctness of redress legislation. ActionSA's policy proposition to scrap BEE is fundamentally flawed and misses the mark of redress legislation, much like its moon-shot friend, the DA. Any political party needs to clarify which constituency it is targeting. It's not useful to try to be everything to everybody.
It's political opportunism to attempt to paint all policies as bad just to be seen to be different. Let's be frank ...
The preamble to the constitution that recognises the injustices of the past is the very foundation of affirmative-action policies. As I have opined in this publication previously, before this we need to diagnose properly what caused BEE's failure. There is often a conflating of issues regarding policy and practice.
A closer analysis of BEE's five pillars reveals these are questions any party serious about redress must answer. It would be interesting to see how an ActionSA government would do so if it were a business.
Who owns your business?
This pillar calls for a better partnership between the haves and the have-nots. In simple terms, a lily-white business in South Africa is unacceptable. We know this provision was abused by politically connected people who, in name only, empowered white businesses and ended up being used as tokens. Often this is used to campaign against BEE. This is misplaced. Apart from this provision being corrected by making BEE broad-based, the solution is a government that does not place political connectedness over skills and the ability to add value to a business.
Who controls your business?
Among the weakness in implementing BEE are poor, non-diverse boards. As with ownership, it's unacceptable to have an all-white or all-male board. There is a tendency to fox ownership, but not bother about control. This results in one of my pet hates — black-owned, white-run.
Who works for you?
Equity. This is probably the worst-performing pillar if a recent department of labour report is anything to go by. According to that document, 30 years into democracy, 70% of new appointments and promotions went to white people. With this massive affirmative-action failure, it's unfathomable that people are calling for it to be scrapped because the painful reality is that affirmative action has not happened. Its failure is a question of oversight or, more precisely, lack thereof. In the early days of the Employment Equity Commission led by Mzwanele Manyi, non-compliant companies were named and shamed, and have since disappeared. Despite this blatant failure, there is a false narrative that white people are being excluded from economic activity. The facts bear out that nothing could be further from the truth.
From whom do you procure?
One of the biggest inhibitors to change is an archaic supply chain that closes the door to new entrants. A competent board must ask where procurement spend is directed. This is where businesses can hold each other accountable by insisting on BEE compliance, even when government business is not involved. If this is done consistently, opportunities can be created for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
No matter your ideological approach, these questions need answering, and really that's all the BEE Act is about. That is why opposition thereto makes no sense because no sensible economic redress policy that asks other relevant questions will get answers that result in inclusivity for those previously excluded from the economy.
ActionSA, with its “opportunity fund” or the ANC with its “industrialisation programme”, must answer these questions. There is no need to fix what is not broken. Here, what is broken is implementation, not policy.
* Dr JJ Tabane is an eNCA anchor and editor of Leadership Magazine
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