NO SOLUTIONS, JUST MORE OF THE SAME FROM DA

THE DA’s recently adopted economic justice policy may make all the right noises about righting the wrongs of South Africa’s racist past.

However, upon closer inspection, and from the rumblings from within the DA over the past year, some might argue the party is merely paying lip-service to transformation.

On the first day of the party’s policy conference at the weekend, it adopted a policy of “non-racialism” which, and for anyone with more than two brain cells, basically means maintaining the status quo.

The party went even further in stating that one’s “race” should not be used as a measure of advantage or disadvantage.

One would think that, according to some in the DA, South Africa started on a blank slate in 1994 and that 342 years (up to that point) of racist subjugation and theft had vanished like the morning mist.

But here’s the thing: the economic burden of South Africa’s racist past still falls squarely on the shoulders of black South Africans, and the face of inequality and poverty remains overwhelmingly black.

Just a few weeks ago the Labour Department’s Commission for Employment Equity’s annual report indicated that white South Africans still occupy 65.6% of top management. While this is merely one metric, it shows the long path South Africa is still traversing on the road to real economic justice.

South Africa’s current problems can’t be laid only at the doors of colonialism and apartheid. As the DA rightly points out, the ANC in government has at times perpetuated inequality through its poor implementation of lofty policy goals and corruption within its ranks.

But the DA’s tone-deaf response to inequality offers no solution, just more of the same.

One only needs to look at Cape Town, where the DA has governed since 2006, to see that economic deprivation, crime and unemployment are located in small pockets of the city which have barely changed.

In Cape Town, the DA has been insincere when it comes to reversing the legacy of apartheid, offering instead to change street names to appease its staunchest critics.

While the DA once harboured ambitions of being in government, its policy prescriptions will see it remain on the opposition benches.