DA alternative is credible

The letter from Institute of Race Relations CEO Frans Cronje, “DA Plays a Dangerous Game” (February 13), deserves a response.

Cronje’s main attack point is that there is nothing to distinguish the DA from the ANC on broad-based BEE (BBBEE), and that the DA has in effect adopted the ANC’s model of BBBEE and the mantra that “race is a proxy for disadvantage”, implying that we are dabbling in racial nationalist populism.

The DA believes that race is a proxy for disadvantage, but not the only proxy. There is a growing black middle class that is well-evidenced, and thus race cannot be the only determinant going forward. One also needs to look at other socioeconomic factors beyond race.

The current ANC system of BBBEE is a topdown approach that looks to benefit elites and connected individuals at the top, creating a small pool of enriched people. The DA believes in a bottom-up approach, which sets us apart from the ANC.

A bottom-up approach needs to focus on education and skills, from primary to tertiary level. It also needs to focus on rapidly increasing employment and equity schemes that can benefit hundreds of thousands, and not a few individuals. It needs to nurture, train and support individuals to start their own businesses. The DA thus unequivocally rejects the ANC’s version of redress, which operates to enrich and re-enrich the connected elite. Our offer is truly broad-based in that it seeks to break down the wall that exists been the “haves” and the “have nots”.

The DA supports a much-simplified BBBEE verification system that measures real empowerment. Our approach would see the current BBBEE scorecard vastly simplified, with the inclusion of time frames for initiatives in the scorecards (to help business plan for the medium and long term).

The new simplified scorecard would channel the efforts of the private sector into investment in the bottom-up approach.

The DA thus has a credible alternative BBBEE offering to the ANC. More details will be revealed in our manifesto launch later this month. We look forward to sharing it with South Africans to provide a credible and attractive alternative to the turgid and corrupt ANC government. Solly Malatsi DA national spokesperson