The grim racial stats behind Dis-Chem furore

When the CEO of Dis-Chem, Ivan Saltzman, wrote his memo explaining that the retail pharmacy giant was falling short on transformation targets, particularly in management, and would therefore pause the hiring of white staff unless a strong case for their employment was made, our country’s centuries-old race divide reared its vicious head, with white folk threatening to boycott Dis-Chem and black folk saying it was about time that a business leader took transformation seriously.

In this edition our astute business writer Ray Mahlaka has cut through the hysteria and explained the data and the upcoming stringent updates to equity legislation that lie behind Saltzman’s memo.

I urge you to read Ray’s balanced journalism on an issue that could plunge us into the morass of racial polarisation when what we need is more understanding, more working together for our common good in a country teetering on the brink of dysfunction because of corruption, incompetence, poor education, petty power squabbles, a lack of foresight and politicians trapped in a prison of ideas that reached their sell-by dates long ago.

There is a very interesting graph in the latest Commission for Employment Equity annual report showing the demographics of top management in companies across South Africa. Of all senior management, those classified white constituted 63.2%, black African 17%, Indian/Asian 10.9% and coloured 5.9%.

Now contrast this with Stats SA’s latest demographics of South Africa – black African 81%, coloured 8.8%, white 7.7% and Indian/Asian 2.6%.

If you look at this in perspective, without emotion, it is clear that South Africa is a very long way from becoming an equalopportunity society. For only 17% of senior management to come from the 81% majority black African population is just plain nuts.

Equally nutty is the converse, that the 7.7% white population holds the keys to 63.2% of the kingdom.

We have to agree that something has to give to change this. We need our economy to grow so that no one loses a job, black or white. We need more skilled and qualified black people who can fill senior positions on merit. We need those white 63.2% of business leaders to follow Saltzman’s lead and do something to open more space for black managers.

We need to break the poverty cycle of generations of black families. We need more support for more black learners to gain access to quality tertiary education.

We need to stop shouting about racism and reverse racism and accept the fact that unless we do many somethings to change the status quo, South Africa is no country for our young.

Yours in defence of truth, Heather