Just about all South Africa’s economic woes of lack of growth, the highest level of unemployment and concomitant widening wealth gap amongst Blacks have their genesis in the race-based legislation enacted by the ANC since 1994.  But even after their parlous showing in the 2024 elections which forced them into a coalition government with the ‘white’ DA, they have doubled down on their employment equity and preferential procurement rules.  For SMAC’s take on this you can

For 31 years the ANC has pushed its transformation agenda using racial preference laws and regulations.  Yes, there has been significant transformation but these laws underpin just about everything that has gone wrong with the country.  For the first decade or so, the effect was relatively minor due to the technocratic, technical and financial sophistication and depth of the economy which the ANC had inherited (along with its problems) and it had the backing of the liberal western democracies. 

Of all the BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) concepts introduced to redress the inequalities, Affirmative Action, via the Employment Equity Act of 1998, was the seed for the demise of the competent state.  This was initiated in state and quasi-state bodies where white employees were levered out by making them unwelcome while offering retrenchment packages.  Many of those who took them also left the country permanently taking their skills, institutional memory and families with them.  This was followed by the Preferential Procurement Act of 2000 culminating in the BBBEE (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment) Act in 2003.

Still the economy soldiered on as the useful life of the infrastructure hadn’t been exhausted yet and the world’s economies were booming.  However, the storm clouds were gathering particularly with the election of the venal and corrupt Jacob Zuma as president of the country in 2007.  The first indication of the impending storm was the Proudly South African phenomenon of electricity load shedding introduced at the end of that year after the ANC had ignored a 1998 report by Eskom that warned of a lack of capacity by 2007 and a recommendation that the company be split into generation and transmission companies. 

By now the negative effects of the race-based legislation had been fully entrenched.  The four horsemen of the South African apocalypse were unleashed and became part of the weft and the weave of the economy – greed, incompetence, corruption and general criminality.  The deployed cadres proved to be incapable of running a sophisticated state, both technically and honestly.  Over the last 15 years every State-Owned Enterprise had to be repeatedly bailed out at huge cost to the fiscus.  The poster child for this was Eskom which, despite bailouts of up to R500bn, and huge above inflation increases for 15 years, unleashed more load shedding in 2023 than in all the previous years.  Rampant corruption and incompetence made Kusile the most expensive coal power station ever built, priced comparably to a nuclear plant, and taking just as long to build.

The overall effect has been economic stagnation but coupled to an ever-increasing population.  Something had to give.  So while the tenderpreneurs continued with their flashy cars and Johnnie Walker Blue and government employee’s salaries increased at the inflation rate plus, the unemployment lines grew ever longer to the point that criminal activity now forms part of many people’s CVs.

One would think that the ANC would realise that they should perhaps rethink the legislation, particularly after their disastrous showing in the 2024 elections. 

Nope, instead of a case of BEEN there, done that, they have doubled down on their race-based legislation.