The recent signing of an agreement between the National Empowerment Fund (NEF) and the Black Management Forum (BMF) – to promote partnership in key areas such as advocacy, research and leadership capacity development – is a much-needed shot in the arm for the government’s broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) reform agenda.
As recently confirmed by Deputy President Paul Mashatile, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) is currently spearheading a two-phase review of the
B-BBEE framework.
The aim is to enhance transformation, curb corruption, and boost inclusive growth without abandoning the policy.
Tackling misinformation
Announcing the agreement at the recently held Frank Dialogue on the Future of B-BBEE by Professor Onkgopotse Tabane’s company FrankDialogue in partnership with Sunday World, NEF chairperson Dr Nthabiseng Moleko described it as “a methodological support behind the research-based information about B-BBEE and South Africa’s transformation agenda”.
It is also Dr Moleko’s view that, given the amount of misinformation shared (including internationally) about B-BBEE, it is important that those who support transformation organise themselves to provide the correct research-based information in that regard.
B-BBEE detractors
The future of B-BBEE in SA is currently under the spotlight, with very strong lobby groups using hammer and tongs to discredit it under the guise of not seeing race and being committed to building a “non-racial South Africa” – while their actions have the effect of undermining transformation and egalitarianism.
One way of them doing this is to use research-based information to disprove the necessity of race-based policies, quoting recent studies showing that black households now comprise 41% of top earners (over R75,000/month, up from 29% in 2012), matching whites at 41% (down from 61%), signalling middle-class growth.
In fact, such studies are shown as proof that there are over 7-million rich black people compared to only about 2-million whites.
This information is fallacious because objectively “rich” implies sustained wealth, including assets such as property, shares, businesses, etc. This is not the case in SA, where the top 20% Black median wealth is R551,000 vs. R1.9-million for Whites, and the overall Black median is R70,000 vs R1.36-million.
Fallacy of composition
The stats conflate a growing Black elite (7-million+ in middle/upper brackets) with broad-based equity, overlooking 58% of Blacks below poverty line and White dominance in wealth-sustaining assets.
This “fallacy of composition” assumes elite income gains fix systemic barriers, justifying policy abandonment prematurely. Dismissing race policies on this basis ignores how they target these residual gaps, risking reversal of even the cited gains.
Stark inequalities
This opposition to B-BBEE also fails to face the demographic reality that Blacks are 81% of SA’s 62-million population (50-million), Whites 7.5% (4.6-million); even equal rich proportions mean more rich Blacks numerically, but data shows the opposite in high-wealth tiers. The reality includes the fact that poverty afflicts 58% of Blacks compared with near-zero for Whites, with top 10% (mostly White-led) owning 86% of wealth per World Inequality Report 2026.
Then there is the “research-based” argument justifying B-BBEE’s abolition by treating its compliance expenses as a net economic loss while ignoring their role as redistributive investments generating long-term societal returns.
The agreement between NEF and BMF enables these important institutions to, for example, through research address the fact B-BBEE drove those top-end gains (e.g., Black ownership now 30%+ of JSE value), but gaps endure in management (Whites 61%), farms (72% White-held), and intergenerational wealth, demanding continuation for structural redress.
In this context, their agreement is indeed a major step towards these two parties’ contribution to the country’s much-needed transformation agenda – which the B-BBEE naysayers refuse to acknowledge.
