The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) says it will make the most of the Democratic Alliance’s Private Members Bill to scrap BEE from government tender processes by making its own submission to Speaker of the National Assembly Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on how race-based empowerment can be replaced, and why it should be.
In a statement, IRR Head of Campaigns Gabriel Crouse said: ‘South Africa is one step closer to finally being liberated from race law. The IRR called for this for most of the last century. There are many more steps to climb and we need many more parties to join the long walk to freedom from race law.’
The IRR said the DA’s Private Members Bill opened a welcome opportunity for the IRR to table its Economic Empowerment for the Disadvantaged (EED) proposal, crafted by the IRR’s Head of Policy Research, Dr Anthea Jeffery.
This policy alternative was the distillation of the IRR’s arguments against BEE since that policy’s inception (the origins of which can be traced back to the ANC’s Morogoro conference in 1969), and its conviction of a better non-racial alternative.
The IRR said it had argued against laws discriminating by race under apartheid, ‘and has continued to argue that the principle supporting non-racialism has not changed in the years since 1994. Basic human dignity, economic efficiency, and democratic social cohesion all demand that people judge one another by the content of their character rather than the pigment in their skin.’
It pointed out that people were ‘far more willing and able to collaborate than the agents of apartheid would ever admit, as demonstrated by former IRR CEO John Kane-Berman’s work on the “silent revolution”’.
In a 2020 survey commissioned by the IRR, 80% of respondents, including 80% of black respondents, said that they would prefer jobs to be appointed by merit. Over 70% said they would personally benefit more from EED policies than BEE.
Yet, Crouse noted, ‘(in) the corridors of power … the voice of the silent majority often falls on deaf ears.’
However, ‘if ordinary people have the courage to speak out, more will heed the call’.
According to IRR CEO John Endres, EED will incentivise value-add and merit, unlocking potential that will likely deliver 5% GDP growth within five years. By contrast, Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi calls for a ‘more aggressive strategy’ to enforce nationwide race quotas through the Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEB). The IRR warned, however, that this was ‘sure to push unemployment above 50%’. The IRR opposes the EEB, with the backing of 20 000 signatories so far.
Said Crouse: ‘The ANC’s pencil-test approach to empowerment must be replaced with a needs test. Everyone can tell the difference between poverty and pigment except the country’s current legal system. The law must reflect reality and Stats SA shows that the reality is that top 10% of black South Africans has earned three times more than the white top 10% in absolute terms since 2015, meaning there can be no need for BEE to make a few rich people richer, while the poor get gutted by 46% unemployment on the expanded definition.’
[Photo: Thomas Holder EWN]