The ANC clings to its flawed, elite-enrichment BEE — and SA pays the price
In this extract from his talk on Remodelling Black Economic Empowerment at the BBBEE Symposium, organised by the South African Presidency in partnership with the Johannesburg Business School, William Gumede outlines the political and financial cost of BEE to the ANC and South Africa.
The African National Congress (ANC) remains steadfast in its adherence to a flawed, elite-enrichment Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) model, which is costing South Africa politically and financially, according to William Gumede, an associate professor at the School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand. Gumede, the author of several books on South Africa, argues that many ANC leaders continue to champion BEE as a solution for the party's own failures, such as cadre-deployee incompetence, corruption, and ideological policies, as well as its elite-enrichment of private and public procurement.
Gumede asserts that the ANC's policy of cadre deployment, which allows approved members to be appointed to key positions in state, state-owned enterprises, democratic oversight institutions, and non-state democratic public institutions, has led to many ANC-connected individuals and entities becoming overnight billionaires and multimillionaires.
This has made it an opportunity for those who have not yet benefited to also accumulate wealth, rather than fostering actual entrepreneurship, talent, or skills. Furthermore, some ANC supporters believe that their leaders who led the liberation "struggle" are "entitled" to become rich using state resources.
The ANC's decline in popularity has resulted in fewer opportunities for its leaders and members to access state positions and resources. Consequently, some ANC leaders are pushing more vehemently for the continuation of elite-enrichment BEE. At the local level, there has been a surge of "construction mafias" and community development "forums" that exploit the BEE policy to secure a "BEE" share of local development projects.
The ANC has successfully marketed the current BEE model as synonymous with economic transformation, rather than a single approach. This has made BEE a central part of the ANC's post-apartheid ideologies and party identity, as well as a source of emotional identification for many black supporters. The party's policies, based on outdated ideology and wishful thinking, have become challenging to abandon, even if they fail, as they have become intertwined with the group's identity and the foundational ideology of many ANC members.
Written by urgent.news from Daily Maverick's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
