On 21 April, my colleague, Gabriel Crouse, and I went to Tuynhuys in Cape Town to physically hand over a letter to the Office of the President seeking answers to questions arising from his decision to sign amendments to the Employment Equity Act (EEA) into law.
This followed our earlier letter to the Presidency of 12 April 2022, opposing the draft amendment, to which we failed to receive a substantial response.
In a letter dated 1 November 2022, the President’s office informed the IRR that the President had noted our constitutional objections to the new EEA, and that these would be considered before Ramaphosa made his final decision.
Given this assurance that he applied his mind to our objections on the constitutionality of the Bill, which was signed into law on 12 April 2022, our request was simply that the Presidency share the content of the deliberations that somehow trumped the IRR’s demonstration of the unconstitutionality of the draft law.
When we arrived at Tuynhuys, we were warmly welcomed by the front desk staff. Our letter was received by the Deputy Director of Corporate Services, who assured us that it would reach the office of the President.
Immediately after Gabriel and I handed over the letter, we headed outside to shoot some videos and take a few pictures for the Stop new nationwide Race Quotas campaign. A picture that we took standing outside Tuynhuys with our fists in the air was posted on the Institute of Race Relations’ social media on Friday night. The picture was captioned: “The IRR’s @mlondi_mdluli and Gabriel Crouse today continued their battle against the unconstitutional Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEA). They handed over a follow-up letter to @PresidencyZA’s office, seeking clarity on his rationale for signing this bill into law”.
‘Token black’
Half an hour later a three-minute video was posted in which we both spoke out against the new EEA. Unfortunately, this did not make much of an impact. To my surprise, a few individuals attacked Gabriel and me personally, both on Facebook and Twitter. I was labeled by some Twitter users as a “token black”, and told by some to “have some shame”. I thought the attacks would stop once the IRR posted our video, where we talk specifically about how race-based policies have significantly contributed to the increase in black unemployment since their implementation, and why the amended Employment Equity Act will make things worse.
However, the Twitter attacks really started to ramp up when the IRR posted a short clip of the video we had taken of Gabriel speaking. In that short clip, I was standing next to Gabriel.
The clip was captioned: “BEE is clearly not working for black people. Black unemployment is now at 35%, but 15 years ago it was at 25% when BEE was first being implemented. Now with the EEA we have BEE on steroids.” The post has since gotten over 200 thousand views.
The part of the original video where I spoke was posted a few hours later. It was captioned: ‘“Surveys by the IRR show that unemployment is the biggest problem in South Africa. Black unemployment specifically has increased since the implementation of race-based policies such as BEE.” – @mlondi_mdluli’. At the time of writing that post has 845 views.
What struck me is that people do not seem to understand what the amendment of the EEA means. It means more race laws. The same race laws have failed to reduce the country’s racial poverty and economic inequality since they were implemented. The same race laws under which the struggle of black unemployment got worse, not better. It does not make sense for the government to implement more race laws.
Not effective
Last month, City Press published an opinion piece that I had written. The op-ed pointed out three reasons why race-based policies have not been effective in reducing the racial poverty and economic inequality caused by colonialism and the racist apartheid regime.
The first reason is that a 2022 report by the World Bank found that South Africa continues to be one of the most unequal countries in the world. The report stressed that the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, rooted in racial and spatial segregation, was the main driver of residual inequality and the cycle of poverty in the country. It further highlighted that the contribution of race to income inequality amounted to 41%, while education was reduced to 30%. This strongly indicates that race remained a key driver of South Africa’s inequality. However, race-based policies that have been implemented by the government have failed to reduce the racial economic inequality.
Second, the 2022 Black Middle-Class report by the University of Cape Town’s Liberty Institute of Strategic Marketing found that the average monthly household income of the white middle class was R56 310, while the equivalent figure for the black middle class was R40 574 – a monthly household income difference of R15 736. In addition, it found that the average net worth of white middle-class households was R4.5 million, which greatly exceeded the net worth of black middle-class households: R1.7 million. If race-based policies were effective, we would not see such significant gaps in income and wealth between the black and white middle class.
Lastly, Stats SA’s 2022 fourth quarter labour force survey shows that 36.8% of black Africans were unemployed, compared with 21.1% of coloured, 14.4% of Indian/Asian and 8.2% of white people.
In the fourth quarter of 2008 the proportion of black Africans that were unemployed was 25.9% of Black Africans. Therefore, this means that unemployment among black South Africans increased by 10.8 percentage points in the past 15 years. The people that have mainly suffered the most are those who were employed in unskilled or semi-skilled manual or industrial work, and those who are not employed at all.
Race-based policies
Race-based policies were introduced by the government to reduce the country’s racial poverty and economic inequality. However, it is very clear that they have dismally failed to do so. On the contrary, black unemployment has gotten much worse. Comments on the IRR tweet about this fact show a lack of appetite to face this fact.
We need better. The IRR’s economic empowerment for the disadvantaged approach is an example of a policy that could be used to address the country’s racial poverty and economic inequality. It aims to directly address poverty across racial lines and the economic inequality faced by many South Africans, rather than simply benefiting some of them.
The amendment of the EEA means more race laws. It is crystal clear that race-based policies are a major failure. Therefore, it does not make any sense for the government to introduce additional race laws. What is really needed is policies such as the IRR’s ‘economic empowerment for the disadvantaged’ approach, which pushes for hire-and-fire policies on the basis of merit, and charity on the basis of genuine need, not race.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend
To support the IRR’s campaign against these onerous and job-destroying regulations visit our campaign page.