Amendments to The Employment Equity Act and It’s Impact on Coloured People
by In my introduction to this series of articles I said I will be looking into the reason why the current ANC government deemed it necessary to propose the amendments to the Employment Equity Act that was highlighted by Solidarity last month. The amendments are quite scary actually, despite what some ANC politicians or members would have you believe. If these amendments are tabled and actually legislated by Parliament, they could very well destroy the futures of a lot of Coloured and Indian children in South Africa. I am not trying to incite racial hatred here, this is serious.
In my introduction to this series of blogs I said I will be looking into the reason why the current ANC government deemed it necessary to propose the amendments to the Employment Equity Act that was highlighted by Solidarity last month. The amendments are quite scary actually, despite what some ANC politicians or members would have you believe. If these amendments are tabled and actually legislated by Parliament, they could very well destroy the futures of a lot of Coloured and Indian children in South Africa. I am not trying to incite racial hatred here, this is serious.
The most controversial part of the proposed amendments dictates that companies must comply with the national economically active population demographics which states that representation of the different races must be 73% Black, 12% White, 10% Coloured and 3% Indian regardless of the demographics in the province. While we all know what this would mean for companies in the Western Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal, the real question is what is the motivation for this blatant racism?
The answer is two-fold.
Firstly, this economy is simply not creating jobs fast enough. Foreign direct investment is all but drying up and our government, and in particular the ANC, doesn’t really care. Julius Malema has stated very clearly that there is no need for Western money, that he is happy with the level of current and anticipated Chinese investment in this economy. Yet Jacob Zuma travels all over Europe trying to ensure investors that South Africa is still “alive with possibilities”, while Malema talks nationalization of mines and banks with Hugo Chavez and other despots. In their latest move they are now legislating that all “temporary” work must be classified as permanent. No wonder investors are keeping a safe distance, opting for China and India instead.
This created an unpleasant conundrum for the ANC. If jobs are not being created, Black Africans must be advanced in some other manner. It is this argument that brings us to the second reason necessitating Employment Equity amendments.
There is a new sector of executives that emerged within the ANC that perpetuates the advancement of Black Africans above all other races. Thabo Mbeki kept them quiet during his tenure, but they emerged quite triumphantly in Polokwane. Where Mbeki showed strong leadership when the integrity of the ANC was brought into question, Zuma is often subdued. He allowed this set of amendments to the labour laws to be written under his supervision, which means that he is the first president of the ANC to shamelessly give in to this bizarre aura of “reverse apartheid” that is currently sweeping through the movement.
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