Tony Ehrenreich and Helen Zille go head-to-head in a debate on employment equity.
The DA strategy is to get people to vote for the DA by default by raising issues that have nothing to do with the fundamental political questions in South Africa, says Tony Ehrenreich.
The discussion on employment equity and affirmative action is being side-tracked by whether it is liberal or not.
This academic discussion might be important, but much more revealing is the fact that the DA’s actions are about blocking transformation. Or, more simply put, to ensure that whites as a group maintain ownership and control of the economy. The fact that the DA does not have a coherent position on such an important issue is a bad reflection of the concerns that the DA has for the lived experiences of the majority.
The DA continues to pander to their conservative white base which wants to maintain ownership and control of the economy as it is now. This same logic of the DA of preferencing mainly white interest is behind the fact that the DA rolls out the IRT buses in Milnerton and Blouberg with a largely wealthy white community with private vehicles. They focus on whites before they roll out the buses in the black areas of Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain, which are poor, black and largely without private vehicles.
The DA does not even consider building lower cost housing in the largely white areas of Claremont and Constantia where there is government land available that could be used for housing. These are the clearest indication of the DA’s commitment to defend the apartheid generational advantages of whites at the cost of black communities’ interest, or, the DA’s refusal to undo the horrible legacy of apartheid through systemic action.
We also see DA preferences in the fact that white companies get primary contracts from provincial state and private tenders and then they subcontract to black companies who get a fraction of the tender price the white companies got.
The workers on the farms who earned R69 a day were ridiculed by Premier Zille, who went to support farmers during this time. Here again, the DA is clearly opposing transformation of farms away from the apartheid practices on farms.
The DA claims to support affirmative action, but more concerned about the black political elite who are becoming billionaires, a view that Cosatu would support, as we want broad-based black economic empowerment, which must include taking excessive wealth from the white elite. But getting greater redistribution in the society is also promoted by BBBEE, which is race-based, affirming actions in company ownership, training and skills transfers that will build a more equal South Africa.
These white elites are the same people who fund the DA election campaign, and that is why the DA does not support the disclosure of political party funding which will reveal the vested interest driving this DA position.
The main lesson to be gained out of this, though, is that when you do not put in place measures to address an injustice, then you become complicit in that injustice being maintained.
But if you or your constituency stand to benefit from the status quo, then your actions to maintain injustice are not just an innocent mistake, but add insult to injury.
The DA strategy is to get people to vote for the DA by default, by raising all kinds of issues that have nothing to do with the fundamental political questions in South Africa.
The questions about unemployment, poverty and inequality are the fundamental issues. It is reflected in South African society by those who live extravagant lives, as reflected in Top Billing, while the majority live in abject poverty.
The trajectory that the country is taking is not moving us in a direction where we address the issues of social justice. In fact, it is moving us towards a more unequal society.
The DA has in various ways showed that they also battle with corruption in their ranks, that they are not immune to the divisions that see political parties riddled with tensions for positions. The DA leader has also been exposed for not being able to manage a pluralistic organisation representing different interest.
But the fundamental issue that this debate has raised is the fact that the DA is not supporting affirmative action. There clearly is no “better together” in the DA, it’s just maintain the better that some have.
By not changing the disadvantages suffered by blacks through affirmative action, you don’t threaten the advantages that whites have.
The South African reality that is exaggerated in the Western Cape, is one where whites have unemployment levels of 6 percent while coloureds and Africans have unemployment levels above 40 percent, with every family on the Cape Flats being affected.
By demographic alignment of employment, unemployment and ownership through affirmative action, we get the minds of all sectors of the society focused on the real challenges of creating more jobs and extending prosperity to all communities. This is the only way in which we can proceed as a community, where we restore the social fabric and undo the apartheid legacy.
* Tony Ehrenreich is Cosatu’s provincial secretary in the Western Cape.
As opposed to the ANC’s vision, in which advancement depends on connections, the DA wishes to make explicit the link between effort and reward, says Helen Zille.
Ahead of the pivotal 2014 national election, there is emerging a refreshing and healthy national discussion about the various parties’ policy proposals. This is in part because the DA is on the cusp of winning in another province, Gauteng, and so voters are faced with a real choice of alternative governments.
The DA’s federal council met this past weekend to finalise the DA’s policy offer for the 2014 election. Over the course of the policy conference, the council agreed on a range of policies that, taken together, will grow the economy and create jobs on an unprecedented scale. Economic growth based on job creation is the best way to redress the poverty and inequality that apartheid created.
Just as the DA’s predecessors opposed apartheid in the past, we are committed to redressing apartheid’s legacy of racial inequality today. The form and substance of the DA’s policy on redress is unequivocally in our support for black advancement, broad-based black economic empowerment and employment equity/affirmative action.
However, this does not mean that we support the ANC’s approach to redress. For the ANC, race determines destiny as a consequence of the perpetuation of racial categories. In contrast, the DA recognises that race still matters for redress but hopes that racial categories will be transcended over time. Our challenge is to strike the balance between the need for race-based redress and our commitment to non-racialism.
The DA specifically supports race-based redress to overcome centuries of racial discrimination. We believe that race and disadvantage are not the same, but we believe that a significant correlation between race and disadvantage remains today. Furthermore, the DA does not believe that the state has a right to classify people according to their race. We believe that individuals have the right to self-identification.
The DA supports incentives for firms to implement programmes of black advancement rather than punitive measures that hamper growth and jobs. We reject racial quotas in favour of programmes that actively promote black advancement by extending opportunity. We regard redress programmes as a transitional measure that must be subject to regular review. This is to evaluate their ongoing effectiveness and to ensure that the measures of disadvantage used are still valid and optimal. The success or failure of a redress programme will be measured by the opportunities that have been created for black advancement, such as equality of education, improved literacy and numeracy, decreased inequality, poverty reduction and youth employment.
The similarities and differences between the ANC and the DA’s approach to redress reveal how the ANC’s policies undermine the NDP, while those proposed by the DA promotes it. Unlike the ANC, the DA is not concerned with the manipulation of outcomes, but with the broadening of opportunities, with confronting the challenges caused by skills shortages and with the development of entrepreneurship.
With regard to employment equity, the DA supports a balanced and qualitative process to promote diversity, which may include racial preference but excludes racial quotas. We believe in investing in the long-term potential of staff and the promotion of diversity through training and mentoring. To this end, the DA proposes an incentive-based system of encouraging appropriate corrective action measures rather than punitive measures to impose racial “representivity” or “quotas”, thereby creating opportunities for black advancement. In this way, the DA hopes to develop a strategy that discourages fronting and encourages true empowerment.
The DA supports empowerment that broadens opportunities for disadvantaged South Africans, the majority of whom are black, and rejects a narrow vision of empowerment based on policies that seek to empower the politically-connected elite. As opposed to the ANC’s vision, in which advancement depends on connections, thereby encouraging corruption, the DA wishes to make explicit the link between effort and reward.
A DA government would implement broad-based BEE to create jobs, improve education and reduce poverty and inequality. Our strategy would prioritise job creation and employee share ownership schemes, allow equity equivalents and cut compliance costs, and work for all small businesses.
Economic growth and job creation are crucial to overcome the legacy of apartheid, which is why all of the DA’s policies put these goals front and centre. But we also believe that growth needs to be inclusive if we are to create a more equal and just society. That is why we support corrective programmes that actively promote black advancement without hampering growth and jobs.
The set of policies finalised on Sunday will drastically reduce poverty and inequality. They are the building blocks of an open opportunity society in which every individual has the freedom and the power to live a life they value.
* Helen Zille is the leader of the DA.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
Cape Times