"Where are the black entrepreneurs who should be sitting around this table?", the very prominent Sandton CEO asked the room that was full of white entrepreneurial faces. The entrepreneurial faces belong to an entrepreneurial organisation. Of the many members only a handful are black. The banking CEO, as it turns out was asking a rhetorical question. "The absence of black entrepreneurs is probably a direct result of employment equity". If you are a skilled black person who is capable of starting a business the chances of you being swept up by the large corporates who are desperate to meet their EE commitments are very high. If you are an African woman and it's heard that you are printing your own business cards the corporate will come to the print shop and show you a telephone number for a sign on bonus and pick up the printing tab.
This conversation is anecdotal. But the comment is valid. It's long been argued that employment equity has stifled high-end black (specifically African) entrepreneurship. Yes we do have our Zungus – but I would argue that they aren't entrepreneurs in the true sense. Their business empires exist because of their connections with the ANC and Zuma in particular. This state of affairs is perpetuated by the ANC government who have recognised that they have lost the black middle class and are wooing them back for the 2016 municipal elections. It then doesn't come as a surprise that Zoomer's doddering state of the nation address had the following to say.
We will sharpen the implementation of the amended Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act and the Employment Equity Act, in order to transform the ownership, management and control of the economy. We will promote more employee and community share ownership schemes and boost the participation of black entrepreneurs in the re-industrialisation of the economy.
Ownership and management and control are a middle class aspirations. Employment equity and BEE are the vehicle that elevates the employees to the position where they are considered for ownership and management. All of the people targeted here are employees. The reference to broad-based ownership schemes is a small carrot for those at the bottom end of the economic spectrum. The reality is that the lucrative deals have been done and the money has been made. It's the third tier businesses that are going to put these deals together. Deals that will ultimately deliver very little for their broad-based shareholders. Deals that really shouldn't be done in the first place.
And so the black (specifically African) entrepreneurship class is doomed to non-existence. The black entrepreneurs that will "participate in the re-industrialisation of the economy" are probably going to be Zungu-like characters. Those true entrepreneurs like the banker I referred to are unlikely to surface in the short to medium term. As a result with the status quo being what it is I would imagine that entrepreneurship and employment creation are going to be the domain of white and Indian businesses.
If you want to know who the CEO is, here is a cryptic clue.
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