Bill keeps apartheid alive

The new Employment Equity Bill is more than a weapon of economic mass destruction, it entrenches apartheid in the workforce (“New employment equity bill is a weapon of economic mass destruction”, September 9). If employers are obliged to enforce race quotas, open competition for jobs will disappear. Whites will compete only against whites, coloureds only in “their” group, and the same for blacks. There will be no reason for a black candidate to ever compete against a white, coloured or Indian candidate.

More than 70% (assuming this to be the black proportion of the economically active population) of jobs at all levels will be reserved for black candidates. Whites and other ethnic minorities will compete only against their own kind, locked into their own quotas.

Does this not remind one of the Verwoerd government’s racial policy defended by the white government as beneficial “separate development”? The ANC attacked the policy, denigrating it as racist discrimination.

Of course, these are not the same forms of discrimination. Pre-1990 racial policy envisaged geographically separate areas, while the present amendments to the Employment Equity Bill posit racial separation in companies. Nevertheless, they are two sides of the same coin. The modern form espoused by the ANC will create internal “separate development”, silos in companies. Each race group will work within its quota fiefdom. Any performance comparison between individuals of different races will be superfluous. Black people will compete only with and be compared to other black people. The same will obtain for the minority groups. There is a word for this: apartheid.

Willem Cronje Cape Town