The Army Gymnasium in Heidelberg was graced with two special people in 1986, MC Snyman and an Adrian Molalike known as Fourie. MC Snyman is an institution but little is known about Fourie so I'll talk about him. Fourie was an avid fan of Eugene Terreblanche and the AWB. The wonderful contradiction was that he was a short little guy, with a fair complexion and glasses, the antithesis of Terreblanche. But he had views which ranged from Holocaust denial to dramatic racial segregation. One morning we were in a classroom, there must have been about 25 of us (white males) and Fourie. I seem to recall that all of us could not understand nor agree with Fourie's views and I think we were in the process of persuading him that his views were deluded. Just when we thought we were convincing him that he was wrong, he retorted with " 'n……………….. is mos 'n……………….." Fourie was not to be persuaded.
Last night I was on Classic Business. Hosted by Michael Avery, the panel included me, Sam Gumede – Partner, Mergers and Acquisitions, Black Economic Empowerment at Webber Wentzel and Takalani Tambani, BEE Director at the DTI. This was always going to be a problematic conversation, I cannot hide my contempt for the revised codes. I also harbour a fair amount of animosity toward the dti as well for publishing the codes and then not bothering to explain the garbage that they have gazetted. One of the issues that I raised with Takalani was that of Constitutionality. Once again Tak threw section 9(2) back at me, saying that it was perfectly Constitutional. He couldn't explain why the codes are in breach of the BEE Strategy – specifically the inclusivity principle contained in paragraph 3.4.2. His stock response was that it was Constitutional.
And herein lies the ultimate problem with the state of legislating in South Africa. Many pieces of legislation or supporting legislation are most certainly unconstitutional. The government take the stance that it is constitutional and that is that. Not too dissimilar to Fourie. What they really are saying is that they will legislate in any arbitrary way and if you don't like it then take them to court. They also know that few people or interested parties will challenge the legislation in the Constitutional Court and they'll get away with it.
It's not too much to ask that the government test their laws against the constitution before they foisted them on us. Section 9(2) gives the government a free reign to do whatever they like. This freedom has to be curtailed.
Would Takalani say "these codes go to 11"? Rob definitely would (not Rob Reiner)
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