Since it came to power on 1994 the African National Congress has given up on the hard graft of getting growth for the country. Just look at the rates of unemployment – the highest in the world. Young people have a 60% chance of being unemployed – even at poverty wage levels.
Instead of tackling poverty the ANC decided to go for racial profiling. So all South Africans still carry their old apartheid racial labels: Africans, Whites, Indians and Coloureds. Repulsive, but true. And whether you get a job or a government contract depends on your label. This is the heart of “Black Economic Empowerment” in its various guises.
The policy resulted in great jobs for ANC cronies and grindingly slow growth or poverty for the rest. And corruption, of course: take just one example: Knee guards that could be bought for R300 commercially being bought in a government contract for R80,000 a pair. This is not a typo.
Now a “New, Improved” Black Economic Empowerment regime has been brought in. The results are exactly what one would expect.
Martin Plaut 