BEE costs: Parliament must hold the executive accountable – IRR

Parliament must be held responsible for failing to exercise its oversight powers over the executive’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) failures, says the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).

Says IRR Campaign Manager Makone Maja: “When South Africa leads the world in unemployment and successive governments sacrifice job-creating investment at the altar of BEE, which is in effect blatant elite enrichment, Parliament has a duty to question the government’s motives and the decisions that keep South African people entrenched in poverty. Yet, for too long, Parliament has turned a blind eye to the shocking cost of BEE to ordinary South Africans looking for jobs.

“A very public and notable example is the case of Starlink. When an international company like Starlink – an enterprise that would have brought investment and employment into the country, boosted the incomes of households, helped develop tech-oriented sectors and transferred skills and innovation − is barred from doing business in the country in the name of elitist policies like BEE, Parliament has a duty to confront the executive over this pro-poverty direction of travel.

“It is for these reasons that the IRR will this week engage with parliamentarians from all parties about what could justly be described as a lacklustre attitude and dereliction of duty in their collectively failing to check the government when it introduces measures such as BEE that keep people poor,” says Maja.

Last week, the IRR announced that it had written to the ministries of Employment and Labour, Small Business Development, Trade, Industry and Competition, and International Relations and Cooperation, which all play a role in BEE enforcement.

Maja argues that the questions the IRR put to these members of the executive are those that Parliament should long have asked and got answers to. These include details about the potential jobs and investment that could have accrued to the economy had international companies been welcomed rather than denied the opportunity to operate in South Africa over BEE non-compliance.

“This week, we are adding the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi, and the corresponding portfolio committees of each of the departments, to this list. Minister Malatsi must be open with the nation about the investment Starlink had intended making in South Africa. Parliament especially should be interested in these figures as it is the preeminent lawmaking authority, and by continuing to mistakenly lend its support to race-rigged legislation it will only help keep the majority of South Africans out of the economy and perpetually jobless.

“Parliament is also uniquely positioned to hold the executive to account on behalf of the people, particularly in the National Council of Provinces,” states Maja. “It is a marker of the strength of a country’s rule of law that parliamentarians act to advance the interests of the people who elected them rather than those of a BEE mafia.”

MPs will be reminded of the reluctance of many of their predecessors to exercise this obligation during the state-capture era that saw state entities plundered and bankrupted, and institutions weakened.

“Parliamentarians must resist state-capture tendencies and defend only the interests of those that BEE neglects,” Maja concludes.

Media contact: Makone Maja, IRR Campaign Manager Tel: 079 418 6676 Email: makone@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za