Recapturing the Dream: Redress – Part 1

By Zak Mbhele

(‘Recapturing the Dream’ is my writing series that will explore – or, more accurately, meander through – four  values and themes that are pillars of the Rainbow Nation Dream of 1994 that South Africa started pursuing at the birth of democracy. These values also form the foundation of the vision set out by our Constitution, namely redress, reconciliation, delivery and diversity. These values and themes are further echoed in significant diagnostic and analytical reports released recently, most notably the Dinokeng Scenarios report and the National Planning Commission Diagnostic Report.)

With talk of nationalisation and expropriation becoming a hot topic of public discourse, it does open the opportunity to look more in-depth at the very relevant issue of redress and addressing the legacy of apartheid in South Africa. Three definitions of ‘redress’ taken (rather haphazardly) from the dictionaries that were easiest for me to reach are rendered as follows:

1)  To correct something that is wrong or unfair,

2)  To make a situation fair or equal when it has been unfair or unequal and

3)  To remedy, rectify, readjust or set straight again.

The synonym given for redress is ‘compensation’.

From this one can pull out three key threads:

1)    Redress is a response to a previous situation of wrong and unfairness

2)    The end goal of redress is fairness and equality, particularly equality of access to opportunity, resources and power

3)    Redress involves active redistribution and deliberately biased allocation of resources in favour of the previously wronged or disadvantaged.

In South Africa, the discourse around redress tends to boil down commonly to four policy areas: black economic empowerment (BEE),  affirmative action (AA) and employment equity (EE), land reform and restitution, and name changes. All of these measures seek in some way to bring about a situation of fairness and equality in response to the artificially engineered situation of inequalities and white domination and/or over-representation in most economic sectors as created by apartheid and as still experienced as its legacy. I’m not going to go into a detailed or comprehensive unpacking of all these points; rather I want to flag certain thoughts or ideas that always come to mind for me in relation to them.

First, to look at BEE. The story goes that BEE was cooked up by white-owned big business in the early 1990s as a way to protect the majority of its assets and business holdings against the threat of radical ANC economic reform policies once they came to power, the idea being that if the ANC political elite (or politically connected individuals) were given a stake in the business sector, they would be less likely to “rock the boat” economically. Well, it worked. BEE was launched and promoted as an initiative to deracialise the economy and within several years, a handful of politically connected individuals had benefited from BEE deals and become among the country’s most recognisable black high-net worth individuals, leading some to start commenting that BEE actually stood for “black elite enrichment”.

Now it goes without saying that there’s nothing wrong with black people becoming rich and it’s not the worst thing in the world for people to use political connections to facilitate access to economic and business opportunities (after all, 75% of career success is based on who, not what, you know). However my reservations about BEE are two-fold: first, inasmuch as I have no problem with the use of connections to get ahead in business, I believe that they should be used only to get one’s foot in the door but then your merit should clinch you the deal or position. Connections should not be the sole or even primary basis of business dealings – they should only land you the initial meeting, proposal presentation, interview, etc, but no more. Beyond that it should about your business merit – qualifications, knowledge, skills and experience – that should carry you. I remain unconvinced that this has been the case in the majority of BEE deals, at least those involving politically connected individuals (and just to be clear, I’m not ragging on you, Andile Mazwai. You rock socks).

My second reservation about BEE is that I believe it has diverted attention and energy from the urgent need to foster genuine black entrepreneurship, where people build businesses from the ground up and create economic assets and economic value a la Herman Mashaba (founder of Black Like Me) or Richard Maponya instead of just having current business equity (and often not even prime equity) transferred to them (financed by debt, of course). In this way, not only would black ownership be boosted in the economy but the economic pie would actually be expanded simultaneously. As much as equity redistribution within current business holdings is important and certainly a useful way to score “quick wins”, the fundamental and structural change we seek that will bring about meaningful redress can only come about through the growth of black entrepreneurship.

(Recapturing the Dream: Redress – Part 2 to follow soon)

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