Zuma stands by his JSE remark despite uproar

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma reiterated his previous assertion yesterday, pinning black ownership of the JSE at 3 percent, the Presidency said. His remarks, made in reply to the State of the Nation address last month, apparently “incurred the wrath of some economic commentators”, spokesman Mac Maharaj said. “The president stands by his assertion, which was based on the measure used by the National Empowerment Fund to assess direct black ownership and control in the economy, using the JSE as a proxy.” Maharaj said commentators had contested Zuma’s statistic by referring to a JSE statement that suggested black ownership of the top 100 companies had increased to 23 percent. Maharaj pointed out various technical differences between how the different sets of statistics were arrived at. – Sapa