The GNU will not be reforming BEE, but “refining” it

Some people have been kind of chipper about the potential of the ANC for ditching BEE. But this is just not happening. Let’s consult the record quickly. The official statement from the 21st of October is that BEE is a “critical policy”. Mashatile says they aren’t scrapping it at all, but reviewing it for some little tweaks.

In Parliament on the 11th, the DA’s Baxolile Nodada asked Mashatile why he didn’t just back the DA’s Bill, and Mmusi Maimane, ever the airhead, asked why BEE doesn’t foster black education: “can we not focus triple BEE on the education, particularly of black children? And in that case, if that be so, would you not argue that those who don’t support that view maybe should not be serving in your Cabinet of Government of National Unity?” The sane answer is because its an entirely different policy area, and that Maimane is a moron. 

Mashatile’s answer to both was to affirm that BEE is here to stay, including the legislative framework: “We are engaging even our partners in the GNU [to] convince them that this is the right thing to do. You don’t have to throw away the legislation. You review it, amend it, make it better so that we can achieve our objectives.” And then he politely pointed out for Maimane’s benefit that education initiatives belong to other departments, like the Human Resource Development Council.

The DA should know by now that their Bills never get passed – one wonders why they bother spending all those legal consulting fees on drafting the 50-odd private members bills they’ve hocked into the Parliamentary shredder since the advent of democracy. They aren’t scoring any points with the public, who barely know their bills exist.

But, you know, this is Mashatile, he’s just the Deputy President, what does he know? But then this Wednesday, it was DTIC head Parks Tau’s turn to answer the same inane questions from our national pantomime gallery.

Atholl Trollip of Action SA basically asked the ANC why they aren’t BEE-ing harder: “please advise how you propose to move away from the cosmetic compliance focused on elite-driven empowerment that will ensure real economic access for historically disadvantaged communities that will promote long-term structural changes”. 

Maimane asked a more important question on the policy of “equity equivalence”  – letting investors stick a second investment in some make-work charity scheme instead of relinquishing shares to freeloaders. They had already been using this option for select foreign investors, had offered it to Starlink earlier this year: “in guiding the review are you looking at introducing a similar policy to South African companies so as to stimulate investment from their part so that it doesn’t become such that a citizen could sit elsewhere and say I’m not going to invest where South African companies are not. Are you going to expand equity equivalence?”

Tau responded vaguely and indirectly, pointing to the “five pillars” of Islam, er, I mean, BEE: “The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act has five pillars [Ownership, Management Control, Skills Development, Enterprise and Supplier Development, and Socio-Economic Development]. So to suggest that in fact broad-based black economic empowerment has not reached a vast number of people is a fundamental misunderstanding of the policy  […] Now what we have said is any policy requires constant review in terms of its efficacy, its implementation plans, and progress that you’re making in that regard.”

In other words, probably not.

As for the comments about “constant review”, Tau is quite correct – BEE has gone through a number of policy revisions over the years, becoming stricter, more coercive and more expansive over time. And now is the time for another turn of the screw. But while they’re screwing us, they have to let a few elites get off, or they will risk cutting off all access to capital. So there must be flex in the system, just not for us sublunar rascals.