What does a ruling party do when they realise that their definition of black is not working for them? Simple, they use the economically active population (EAP) to create degrees of blackness. Perhaps the gestation of this thinking went along these lines.
ANC/government person 1: Soooooooooooooo we've got the definition of black in the BEE Act and the Amended Employment Equity Act as a "generic term for Africans, Coloured and Indians (subject to a few conditions.)
ANC/government person 2 (who has more than a standard 3/grade 5 and can read legislation): Indeed we do.
ANC/government person 1: This is not working for us.
ANC/government person 2 (who has more than a standard 3/grade 5 and can read legislation): Why is that?
ANC/government person 1: The bloody Coloureds and Indians are taking all the jobs and business and skills development spend and enterprise development and socio-economic development opportunities from the Africans. Our people (because the ANC is really an African party) are suffering.
ANC/government person 2 (who has more than a standard 3/grade 5 and can read legislation): Let's take a lead from the great leaper of vines – jungle jim (Mr Manyi as Hendrik Verwoerd would address him) and use the EAP. This way we get to prioritise jobs and other benefits for Africans.
ANC/government person 2 (who also has more than a standard 3/grade 5 and hence has no hope of running the country and cares not a fig for the Constitution): What a spiffing idea, I'll tell Mildred and you tell Rob.
On the way to see Rob, ANC/government person 1 bumps into Fikile Mbalula……..
The casual reader might think that this author has a major problem with this logic. Actually he doesn't (if I may speak for him). There is little doubt that Africans (who aren't white by the way even though it's patently obvious that white South Africans are Africans) are not benefiting as greatly as perhaps Coloureds and Indians are. But there are two problems
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There is no legislation that allows the government to separate black people into further racial qualifications.
The word black under both the EE and BEE Acts remains a generic term for "Africans, Coloureds and Indians".
- It pisses off Coloureds and Indians
The second point is the most relevant because there is now a genuine outcry from Coloureds in the Western Cape who make up more than 40% of the EAP in that area and Indians in KZN. Regarding the latter there is a complete over-concentration of Indians in that region.
In the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where the majority of South Africa's 1.4 million Indian-origin citizens live, business and community leaders say such a law would reduce the number of jobs available to Indians because the national demographic population figure would be overwhelmingly black. Indians were shipped to KwaZulu-Natal from 1860 onwards to work as indentured laborers at sugar cane plantations, according to Ravi Pillay, an ANC member and provincial minister for Human Settlements and Public Works in KwaZulu-Natal.
Even Vivian Reddy who is a great Zuma acolyte is also not in favour of this.
An Indian businessman based in KwaZulu-Natal, Vivian Reddy said Indians were unfairly and unjustly being prejudiced by the proposed law.
That's a turnaround for the books.
The draft EE Codes of Good Practice have been roundly lambasted by a wide variety of people – including Marius Fransman. The period for comments has now past and Mildew Pachyderm has issued a press release
The draft Employment Equity (EE) regulations issued by the Department of Labour are in no way intended to disadvantage any of the designated groups, according to the Minister of Labour, Mrs Mildred Oliphant.
"Contrary to what some parties have claimed, the regulations were in fact introduced to enhance the implementation of the law. We opened the process up for comments and we sincerely appreciate and welcome all the comments that have been made. The social partners at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) are now busy consolidating these inputs. This means the final product will be a result of a consultative process that reflects the views of a cross-section of our population," she said.
These two paragraphs deserve a little more attention. The "in no way intended to disadvantage" disclaimer doesn't work anymore. We've learned the hard way from number 1's insincerities that they don't care about the consequences of their legislation. What she really means here is that the regulations are designed (not specifically unfairly as I mentioned earlier) to benefit Africans. They don't INTEND to disadvantage Coloureds and Indians even though they do in fact disadvantage them. We can take that with a pinch of salt.
And then the kicker – by now your bullshit radar must be on high alert – the social partners are consolidating the inputs. Let us consider Rob and his divisive codes – there is no way that the dti or Rob considered any of business' comments. They went ahead and published what they wanted to publish all in the name of section 9(2) of the Constitution. Rather like die-hard Nats justified apartheid.
AND
There is NO WAY ON god's GREEN EARTH that we can trust the ANC government's word here. The chances are overwhelming that they will go ahead and publish these codes as drafted and hide again behind section 9(2) and say – we never intended to prejudice. Yes, like Hitler never intended to kill Jews and Poles, all he wanted was a third Reich without them in it.
What then happened to ANC/government person 1 bumping into Fikile Mbalula (who is regarded by Gareth van Onselen as "the worst sports minister South Africa has ever had") and tells him about this new EAP thing that's taking the ANC by storm. Fikile yells "Europia" – we're going to set 60% quota targets on the major sporting codes (perhaps all of them). The press haven't really got the proper story here – in a long interview with Xolani Gwala on 702 last night he explained that the quotas are not generic black, nein mein Herr, these are African quotas.
As you can see, the EAP is a firm ANC policy. Whilst not specifically unreasonable (although I don't agree with national teams being bound to quotas) they do not have Constitutional or legislative support. In the absence of this the government cannot arbitrarly impose their will on us.
And this is one of the core tenets of our court case against the dti and their new codes.
Black is black anybody
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