Judge For Yourself | The Battle for BBBEE

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:05]Welcome to Judge for yourself. Our topic, particularly this program, is black economic empowerment.

[00:00:13]Now, let us be clear. The president has said that the policy of the government, in order to transform the economy, must be based on black economic empowerment, triple BEE.

[00:00:26]Fair enough.

[00:00:27]We have no difficulty in saying that the economy must be transformed. You can't possibly reproduce the apartheid-style economy, which still continues to a considerable extent, where white people have an overwhelming share in the fruits of the economy.

[00:00:45]But the question is whether black economic empowerment is the mechanism to get us there. And the further question is, there is significant indication that it might not succeed. If you look at the Gini coefficient, which measures inequality in South Africa, intra-black inequality, that's inequality within black population in South Africa, has grown. It's about 0.57 now, perhaps even higher than that, to 0.60.

[00:01:18]It basically shows fundamental inequality, which is continuing. And therefore, the question that we want to ask, to transform the economy as the constitution envisages, is black economic empowerment the recipe, or has it been an abysmal failure in so far as this objective is concerned? There will not be accommodations of individual businesses at the expense of the interests of South Africa. Elon Musk, who was born in Pretoria, now the world's wealthiest man, has been using his personal platform X for relentless rants and criticisms that for sanctions against South Africa if we don't change our BEE policies. When it comes to the social media brouhaha from Elon Musk, I pay very little attention to that because I know our laws are not racist.

[00:02:17]Let me be clear. I agree with the president. I'm not at interested in the intricacies of Elon Musk's business. I find many of his statements utterly appalling. But his tweets and his interviews have blown up a debate that has been simmering in our country since 2003. The questions are these policies stunting our development? Do they disadvantage the majority of South Africans even further? And more importantly, do these laws actually fix the generational damage caused by apartheid or they simply fuel corruption, benefit the political elites, and are a recipe for rent capture? That narrative is the narrative that is trying to bastardize or to demonize BEE as it were. You are now focusing on the little few blacks that are there that you can name by name. And you say because Motsepe is there, because Ikey is there, and therefore that should be enough for black people and now Ikey is richer than all of us and all of that.

[00:03:11]That is a demonizing of the concept.

[00:03:13]What we desperately need are proper reforms so that the majority of South Africans can benefit.

[00:03:18]But politicians actually decide what those reforms will look like. And many of them are also the ones who benefit from the entire scheme. We do accept that there there there is a case for us to rethink how it's going to be implemented going into the future, but we are not about to abandon it.

[00:03:37]Broad-based black economic empowerment was formalized in 2003. It's been amended and rescored, but the actual constitutional intent always remains the same: to address the economic apartheid that gave white South Africans all the advantages in every sector of our economy.

[00:03:54]The average income of white households is still nearly five times higher than that of black or African black African households.

[00:04:06]This is the gulf that we must close.

[00:04:10]The fact is that there aren't equal opportunities for all. The fact is that to a large degree the structure of the South African economy has remained pretty similar over 30 odd years. The top 10% of the population hold 86% of the wealth. By 2024, white South Africans still hold 61% of top managerial posts. All the monopolies are owned by white monopoly capital. So, until you transform those major institutions, you're playing games.

[00:04:39]We've taken a route which is sort of the African route of black economic empowerment, your Zimbabwe route where it turned Zimbabwe into a failed state. So, essentially is what we've done. We've just handed over shareholding in white companies to black politicians. And we know that race is no longer a suitable proxy for poverty because we see over and over in the news the Cat McGlala types, the deputy president of >> vast majority of people are poor. Still are black. And we don't contest that and to better capture those people and efforts to be included in the economy, stop using this metric that perpetually benefits the collected elites. Just get rid of the subotouch, address it properly, and then if it fails having done it the way it was intended, then you can say this thing is not working. What has succeeded now are the shenanigans.

[00:05:31]The Zondo Commission gives evidence of how BEE has become a foundation for corruption in South African society.

[00:05:41]>> [music] >> Every permit, every license, every tender becomes an opportunity to sell a favor. Angelo Agrizzi, for example, detailed how Bosasa repeatedly used and manipulated BEE ratings to win state businesses. We are watching the Madlanga Commission unfold. And it's very likely that the Madlanga Commission will also make findings on on on triple BEE legislation, given the the ability of or the alleged ability of criminal cartels to to infiltrate key government spaces like the South African police, like the Tembisa Hospital. So so those are the the the difficult political questions that the ANC is facing. Someone who's honest is going to say, "I actually got an enterprise development loan and mentorship from Davis and Cole because of BEE." Yes, it it has not benefited everybody, and that's capitalism for you. Capitalism doesn't benefit everybody, and we shouldn't scapegoat BEE. We actually need a thousand more Saki Macozomas. We need 20,000 more Patrice Motsepes and all of that. So those people that are usually used as beacons are just a drop in the ocean. We need a lot of them. I mean, there's not one black person in this country that is at the level of Rupert. South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world.

[00:07:11]That is a terrible indictment. What we need is mass economic empowerment. Not large ownership stakes in major corporations that are handed out just to privilege few. And most opportunities right now are tied to high education networks, access to capital. That's expanded the black middle class, and that's fair enough. But it's done nothing for people with no formal qualifications. We need to change the rules of state procurement that favor those with access to political networks.

[00:07:39]There needs to be stronger support for small businesses that can create new jobs. Let more workers share in ownership schemes. And we need to invest more heavily in skills development technical training, so that you allow poorer South Africans to participate in higher value sectors. Those forms of black economic empowerment would have been would have been much more productive. Of course, that forms of black economic empowerment would not have put the money into the hands of politicians. And that is the problem.

[00:08:07]>> BEE has other elements, too. Think about skills development in the BEE codes.

[00:08:13]Many, many children in South Africa who do not have connections, not an iota of a connection with a politically exposed person get access to education.

[00:08:26]You know >> Look at the state of education in South Africa. It's not good enough.

[00:08:30]Yes. For the vast majority of black people, they still get a pretty lousy education. Which is a tragedy.

[00:08:37]>> I I agree. It's a tragedy, but half a bread, you know, is better than is is better than nothing. So Evidence shows that after three decades of BEE, there has not been the transformation required. But that, of course, is the mantra of the present, which I might add is without justification in relation to the evidence. Those who say that BEE must stop and affirmative action must stop are just dreaming because we will not abandon the BEE policies that we have embarked upon because we see them as transformative and we see affirmative action as enabling our people to participate meaningfully in the economy of our country. I'm just not sure what the ANC means anymore when they say transformation. Do they mean that we need to have more than 30% of people unemployed? And do Do mean that some people should starve to death in 2026?

[00:09:38]And do they mean that our economy should be growing at less than 1% for a decade?

[00:09:43]>> Firstly, let me say that at the core of the South African problem is the historic the historic subjugation of black people to oppression discrimination in all forms that you can imagine including brutality to ensure that black people do not gain access to economic opportunity. And of course you've also got to have a record to show to what extent these policies are succeeding in transforming the economy and fulfilling their objectives.

[00:10:11]Education is the superior form of empowerment. I'm sitting here because of education. If we had done that in 1994, we would have had now two or three generations that actually would have been in in in power. What you don't want is jobless growth. What you don't want is an economy that looks like it's growing, but at the same time a large chunk of people in South Africa are left What I'm putting to you now is that if you if you provide goods and services to the benefit of people so they can better do their job so that they get better education, they get better health care, and they get better policing because the state gets value for money when it procures, then then that then of itself will have an equalizing effect that will have the effect of pulling people up. So let's be clear about what we've actually been debating.

[00:10:58]This program is passionately supportive of the transformation of the South African economy so that participation reflects the demography of our society.

[00:11:09]Indeed, that's a constitutional imperative. It must be done. What is not a constitutional imperative is that one particular program which has not necessarily succeeded should be persisted with. That's not the idea of what we're arguing.

[00:11:24]We say that if you look at the evidence, it's seriously questionable about whether BEE in whatever form really does the job of ensuring greater participation in the economy by all South Africans. The fact is that there's such a long record about corruption, about rent capture, about procurement all gone wrong, and about a whole range of accretion of wealth by very small percentage of the population at the expense of the majority. So, the question we ask ourselves, and which we ask you to think about is this.

[00:12:01]What is the best policy to ensure that we can actually make sure that the vast majority South Africans get a fair share of the economic fruits of South Africa.

[00:12:14]That's the key question, and you'll have to judge for yourself.