The Black Business Council (BBC), a lobby group that represents the interests of black businesses and professionals, has slammed the gazetted bill of the DA aimed at replacing broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE), labeling it a continuation of apartheid.
The DA proposed the Public Procurement Amendment Bill, which was gazetted on Tuesday, where the party’s head of policy and MP, Mat Cuthbert, stated that the bill will tackle poverty and create real economic inclusion for all.
The BBC called on South Africans and the parliament to dismiss the DA’s “nonsensical proposal” with categorical disdain on Tuesday.
Failure to deal with historical imbalances
BBC CEO Kganki Matabane said the bill dismally fails to deal with historical imbalances of the past and the lived reality of more than 92% of the population.
“In the eyes of the DA, black people are only good as recipients of social benefits or handouts but are not worthy to own any part of their own economy,” said Matabane.
He added that the DA proposal was that the government should only continue to do business with big and white-owned companies and reject small businesses, which are mainly operated by black people.
“In our view, the DA desperately wishes South Africa could go back to the bad days of apartheid, where black people were exploited as servants of white people with no power or say,” he said.
The council said that the claim that B-BBEE had only benefited a few shows that the DA had ignored the fact that empowerment has various elements involved, including ownership, management control, skills development, enterprise and supplier development, as well as socioeconomic development.
“We now have black executives, chairmen, and CEOs of both private and public sector companies primarily due to employment equity.
“Interestingly, the very spokespersons of the DA would not have been allowed as members of the DA without employment equity. They are now practising what we call ‘kick the ladder’,” said Matabane.
BEE benefits few ANC cadres
Cuthbert said on Tuesday that B-BBEE has turned ANC insiders into billionaires, while 44-million South Africans have been relegated to poverty, highlighting that 12-million people are still trapped in unemployment queues.
“The DA will not allow this to stand any longer, because we care deeply about the people of South Africa,” Cuthbert said.
“Our country needs economic inclusion for all people with a model that protects public funds, achieves value-for-money procurement, enables social investments, and results in genuine empowerment.
“We need to dismantle this exclusionary system that has seen the same ANC cadres re-empowered time and again. The DA’s model will do this.
“We are not surprised that after announcing our bill, the ANC, its president, its spokesperson, and its alliance partner Cosatu have all come out to defend BEE despite increasing evidence of its failures.
“This demonstrates just how the ANC will protect their patronage machine at all costs.”
