BEE maintaining the status quo
People’s expectations of BEE are too high. BEE cannot deliver true equality. Only economic growth can do that.
Why? Because BEE does not create any new jobs. All it does is swap “white” jobs for “black” ones. Whites make up about 8% of the population. So if every white miraculously left, it would make little difference to our 37% real unemployment rate.
Yes, BEE share schemes have had great success, but they tend to benefit a select few.
Only economic growth and new job creation can reduce inequality.
And tragically, BEE might actually be stifling new job creation. Why? Because it chases away foreign investment with its red tape and onerous rules.
A case in point: The Airports Company SA/Swissport clash. Foreign companies might happily give away up to 49%, but once you ask for 51%, it implies the foreign owners will have no control over their own company. The 51% new BEE shareholder could then sell off assets and take the money and run, and the original owners would have no say over that.
So demanding 51% ownership means we’re asking foreign investors to effectively give us their companies. How many could agree to that? Unfortunately, it’s the same with the “once empowered, always empowered” issue. What company can afford to keep giving away discounted shares every time a BEE investor decides to sell? After enough discounts, there will be no company left to give.
But there’s a worse aspect to BEE. It locks us into apartheid-era thinking, when actually there is no race except the human race, right? Scientifically, there is no skin test, nothing at all, that can define anyone as purely black, white, coloured or Indian. Race is a social construct.
So while we might still be historically black or white, who really has the right to label others?
If we’re maintaining these labels for the sake of BEE, it means BEE might be keeping us apart. We could be celebrating ourselves under whatever label we choose, not with boundaries forced on us.
BEE is a very noble idea, but in practice, it unfortunately might be maintaining labels, doesn’t deliver enough equality, doesn’t add any new jobs, and doesn’t help the overall economic growth we all desire. Let us rather focus on job creation.
Mark Jackson, via e-mail