BEE on borrowed time — why attacks on SA’s social engineering project won’t abate this time

Stephen, Musk is not entirely incorrect when he says Starlink is not operating in SA because he is not black, as I read it, black South African. If he was a black investor he would not face the same onerous BEE requirements that he will currently face as a white business operator.

If BEE had been more circumspectly handled it would have worked a lot better. In its current form all it has done is favour blacks who had enough savvy to be accepted as board members in (largely) white corporate business. Most had the savvy to accept shares, sell them, and bail. System failure!

Surely BEE can be scrapped and replaced with other incentives? Things like tax incentives to companies for employment and training of previously disadvantaged individuals? Or awarding credits to be spent with suppliers / other services that will benefit the company?

Who would have thought the Starlink deal could change the political and economic situation in SA? The bottomline is that for our economy to grow which in turn could provide more jobs, there has to be a bigger pool of competent educated people and less red tape. Good article, thanks .

The World Bank and IMF , foreign investors and local business have warned on this policy for some time. Musk is just a late entry ! Our ANC masters couldnt give a hoot on any advice given, their track record speaks for its self , virtually every single state entity is a shambles ?????

We sit with a budget problem. But why does no one mention the cost of BEE. Even without corruption a BEE company can still get the job at a 10% premium. That extra comes from somewhere! De Ruyter said that BEE was costing Eskom 30% extra. 30 years on is that still fair or relevant?

DEI is what is being attacked in the US. Just sub 'black' with 'diversity' & we get the nub issue! Add 'equity' & 'inclusion' in the mix & we have a 'perfect storm'! Trump & Musk's agenda is to centralise 'power' in the hands of the white supremacists of the world (+- 13%).

Look at the latest big one - FlySafair. They were in danger of losing their license because their overseas shareholding was too big, basically they have to give black South Africans a huge slice of equity for nought!

"But, there appears to be no public discussion about what to replace it with, . . . ." Excuse me Stephen, there are alternatives and you could help to make their discussion public. The IRR has an alternative to BEE, which it calls Economic Empowerment for the Disadvantaged that.. (no space left

BEE has changed ownership and made the connected incredibly wealthy but nothing for social development. The civil service - probably 95% BEE - is a grotesquely bloated, utterly incompetent and grossly over paid, dismal failure. We certainly could do with a health dose of DOGE

After 30 years of democracy (apparently an equal society) one would think that a minority group hardly constitutes a threat in the workplace or share schemes. As it stands at the moment, BEE it is a racist policy that should have been scrapped a while ago.

The best way to empower "black" people aka the poor and historically disadvantaged is through an excellent education, apprenticeships and small business support. Jobs are not created through big business but by nurturing small business. It should be about economic class, not skin colour, anyway.

The previous National party government promoted an Afrikaner first mentality for years and so now the ANC government promotes a black first policy. However, over 30 years is long enough. We should operate a level playing fields policy, cut the rules and red tape and grow the country correctly.

> Of course, this is not true. Wrong. Three licenses are involved: IECS to sell services, IECNS to operate infrastructure, and Spectrum, to use spectrum from ground to space. The first 2 require 30% HDI equity. The last requires 30% black equity. Equity, not some set-off like other BEE rules.

I’m not opposed to BEE in principle – the more the better with South Africa’s massive inequality. The problem is that it is often implemented very corruptly, feeding patronage networks etc., rather than building sustainable economic transformation. After more than 30 years we should do better.

BEE has enabled the establishment of a relatively small group of wealthy Black business people, while doing nothing for the mass of their poor compatriots. A policy with very limited success

Even the Zondo commission identified BEE as one of the key enablers for corruption, waste and state capture.

Thanks for the optimistic thought. There is no need to replace BEE at all. What we need to do is focus on reducing poverty (this will reduce inequality also) and that means provision of basic services to the poorest in society. The private sector will do the rest within the confines of regulation.

"difficult to prove that it has benefited the vast majority of black people" 32% unemployment and 24 million people on grants, the vast majority black. BEE hasn't given them diddly other than seeing ANC elites in Bentleys and Bugattis. Grow the economy, support deserving business. Prosper.

"This meant that black people could not sell their shares because they were black." POETIC JUSTICE?

It’s been a huge tragedy, it would have been a great capacity building platform if pursued with integrity. Instead it’s a bandwagon for lazy opportunists. We had capacity building requirements in tenders we won. We said come and produce work in our office. They said no, we’ll just sit in mtgs.

The Starlink example is not very helpful, especially considering recent events. Do we really want Musk and his ilk controlling our communications? Ukraine and Europe are now scrambling for alternatives. Perhaps we should thank BEE for having saved us from Musk's evil fangs ;-)

BEE has good intentions, but really only makes rich black South Africans richer. Surely, the best way to uplift our poor and unemployed is to encourage foreign investment by removing the encumbrances of BEE? 30% + unemployment !!!

BEE on general employment went insane too. I always thought it was a case of if there were 2 almost equally competent applicants for a job, the previously (more) disadvantaged would get the gig. However, BEE now seems to be just an exclusionary practice.

Wishful thinking. The ANC and it’s cadres benefit too much from this discriminatory policy and they are likely to remain the largest player in town for some time.

There's no reason to "replace" BEE with any other man-made scheme. A free-market economy is the only rational choice.

BEE is a failure for the black majority, not just whites. SA economic infrastructure a shell of 1994, no growth in 17 years, state entities all destroyed, major private sector industries collapsed. Only fruit, one of the planets largest concentrations of super car & ultra luxury goods businesses.

I once explained Employment Equity to a foreigner - those tables with how many males and females of each race a company is supposed to have in each province. He laughed, thinking I must be pulling his leg. BEE and EE must go.

A great article by Stephen. Dare I say the real cause of SA’s economic woes is the ANC’s cadre deployment policy. Until that, or the ANC goes, the status quo remains.

The saddest thing about BEE is that genuine successes will never be recognized. Who, honestly, believes that Motsepe or Ramaphosa would have succeeded to such an extent without BEE. I know that I don't.

Truly journalists in this newspaper are suffering from continued Trump Derangement Syndrome: even when they do good, they do bad. We have a global figure calling out BEE for what it is, yet you find sinister motive. Does Musk seriously care whether the gets a few South Africans using Starlink?

We as commenting on BEE etc have knowledge that the government of the ANC cannot understand. Does anyone in government ever read what correspondents of media write??? Commentators below have eluded to with education being the TOP priority, apprenticeship, tax incentives, etc. Watch economy grow.

What to replace BEE with… a race based education subsidy. The worst legacy of apartheid was generations of non white South Africans with inferior education and that gets passed from generation to generation. So the most effective remedy would be a mass education program to uplift the disadvantaged

Dear Stephen, Your optimism is laudable but it could turn into wishfulness. Some kind of BlurredEE might replace it. Unfortunately, obfuscation is the tool of the ruling clique!

The assertion that Musk's statement about Starlink is untrue, is false. Taken on it's own, the 30% ownership requirement IS the reason. I challenge anyone to prove that a WORKABLE model for the required BEE compliance can be achieved without the ownership component.

At the end of the day BEE only works if we have a well educated populace with everyone having equal access to good primary and high school education and tertiary education so that there are more skilled workers applying for jobs. Until that is focused on nothing will change even if BEE stays.

When Donald Tusk visited RSA in 2018 on the behalf of the EU, he made it clear to the government that BEE was a major impediment to EU FDI. If the ANC was committed to growing the economy, it would have removed this race-based legislation years ago. But ANC doctrine always trumps economic wisdom!

No plan, no matter how well-intentioned or carefully considered, survives contact with the enemy. In the case, the enemy is human nature. Good luck storming the castle.

This is disingenuously lazy journalism. A very brief search would reveal that there are in fact tested alternative methods to uplift and benefit poorer people economically. Ever heard of the IRR studies that posit a means based voucher system? That these are seemingly ignored just attests to a blinkered view that seeks to justify social engineering that has not achieved its stated intention. And social engineering has ultimately never worked anywhere.