10 February 2004
Chairperson, Honourable President, Deputy President, Ministers; Deputy Ministers and Members:
I would like to use my limited time to again restate the case for Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). We have explained this time and again to the nation at large and to this August House and yet the divisive backward, racist inspired argument still persists for obvious reasons.
Contrary to the distorted shortsighted argument by the likes of Tony Leon, Koos van der Merwe and all those who seek to keep the Black people and Africans in particular at the fringes of the mainstream economy in our country.
The ANC approach has always been informed by the understanding that Black and White do not only share one country, but also a common destiny. The ANC has identified the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, of poverty and underdevelopment as the common enemy that confronts all our people.
The BEE process has indeed been triggered by the past economic equalities that were systematically created by the apartheid regime to exclude blacks from the mainstream economy.
Therefore Black Economic Empowerment is one of the key instruments designed to confront this legacy head-on. Only those who want this legacy to endure are opposed to BEE.
The BEE Commision defines BEE as an integrated and coherent socio-economic process located within the context of the country's national transformation programme, namely the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which is aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past by seeking to substantially and equitably transfer and confer ownership, management and control of South Africa's financial and economic resources to the majority of its citizens. Furthermore, it seeks to ensure broader and more meaningful participation in the economy by black people to achieve sustainable development and prosperity (BEECom, 2001).
Black Economic Empowerment categorises people in certain stages of economic development as follows:
In the last State of the Nation address before the 2004 general elections, Honourable President, it has been confirmed that each of these categories has benefited largely from the BEE process.
Everything that has been done by the ANC was aimed at empowering blacks, not because of their colour, but because they are the most disadvantaged sector in the economy that bore the brunt of oppression and is the most affected by the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. The approach that seeks to create division amongst Africans and Coloureds is a total mispresentation of the reality of what has happened in the past decade. The reality is that we have a number of successful interventions in all these categories over the past decade in the area of BEE.
In the first category the following achievements can be highlighted as follows:
In the second category I have used trhe example of PetroSA which defines BEE in terms of capacity building, employment equity, affirmative procurement, equity participation, financial and other support, supplier development and social development. During the 2002/03 financial year PetroSA has spend the following on BEE programmes:
In the third category I have used the example of Eskom whose statistics on Black Economic Empowerment programmes showed that from 1996 until 2002 the BEE target for PDIs was set at R10 139.50 million, but they managed to distribute R13 756.00 million towards BEE programmes.
The black shareholding in companies that benefit from BEE programmes varies from a minimum of 20% held by Black consortiums to 100% Black owned and controlled companies.
Some of these companies are:
In the last category, recent studies has shown that Black ownership of the JSE top 100 companies has increased substantially from less than 4% in 1997 to approximately 10% in 2002 in the resources, financial, industrial, services, consumer goods and ICT sector on the JSE.
Today BEE Companies invest appromiately R150 billion in the equity market on the JSE. BEE Companies however only ownes 9% of the market on the JSE and opens opportunites for BEE companies to engage in mergers and aquisitions within the private sector.
We have not stopped there, the study continues by indicating that the number of directors in the top 100 companies has increased from 14 (1.2%) in 1992 to 156 (13%) in 2002, a 1114.3% increase. The same study showed that the number of executive directors in the top 100 companies has also increasd from 1 (0.2%) in 1992 to 24 (5.2%) in 2002, a 2400% increase and still Mr Tony Leon dares to say in a recent article in the Mail and Guardian, i.e. 30 January 2004 to 5 February 2004, that the Black Youth is suffering because of this government's so called policy of Black Economic Empowerment.
In celebrating the decade of freedom, a conducive environment for all talented sons and daughters of this land has been created enable them to reach the best of their potential.
The ANC recognise and applaud the pioneering role played by the petroleum - and mining industry and the finance sector. We equaly encourage other sectors to follow these examples because it is the right thing to do.
But is this really what we as Parliamentarians do in the implementation of government policies of which we are part. Please allow me for a brief moment to examine this predicament through the follies of our time.
I have observed in my time as a Member of this house that some Members have fine tuned the Judas approach, i.e. kiss him and betray him. These Members heap praises on the ANC achievements and the President and at the next immediate turn they betray the ANC and the President, insult what it represents and distort its policies.
When the Honourable Seremane spoke, tried this, " Sir we know you; you are fooling no-one but yourself. When he spoke I remembered a recitation we were forced to recite when we were very young, entitled: " Wag hondjies- Watch dogs, and went on as follows:
Ek is hier en ma is hier. I am here and mother is also here. Ons lê op baas se baadjie. We both lie on the master's jacket.
Never allow your Africans to be used because it is the most dear thing that you have. When your masters say to you, as they prepare your speeches, when they say it will be appropriate for a black face to make the kind of unfounded allegiations you made…….please be man enough and refuse for the sake of your soul.
And now let me dwell to the so called new alternative. Typically of Mr Tony Leon, he has said nothing new. It is still the old narrow, divisive message of dispair. We have heard the same message for the last ten years.
He had a unique opportunity to account to the nation and the voters about the chaos their short spell of governance visited upon the people of this province, the Western Cape. When voters went to sleep, the Premier was Marais. When they woke up the Premier was Morkel. When voters went to luch, the Mayor was Morkel. When they reported for work, the Mayor was Marais.
And he has the audesity to proclaim himself as the alternative. People do not want an alternative of instability and chaos. They will never forget that the DA's short spell of illegitimate governance reduced this great province to a circus.
No, sir they don't' want an alternative but they want the continuity of the caring and stable governance of the ANC. They have not forgot the ever increasing evictions, cutting of services and all related miseries the've experienced and now you think you can call on them to vote for you.
No, sir, they will vote for the better life that they enjoy under the ANC led government. They know the alternative you are speaking about is nothing new but the same promise you made to unite the opposition.
According to you the opposition needed to unite in order to effectively fight the monster- Black government- in essence you undertook to mobilise all those who cared to listened to your tired message of dispair.
Needless to mention, you dismally failed the attempts to bulkanise our country into hostile camps, fell flat on its belly. Mainly because you messge did not appeal to some but because of your weak leadership.
You have proved beyond reasonable doubt that you are a weak leader, spineless and not able to lead even the street you live in.
South Africans want a serious, respectable and humble leader with integrity to lead this country out of the misery of poverty, hunger and underdevelopment and that is Thabo Mbeki, the President of the ANC, a Statesman Per Excellence.
We apeak of things we know, we bear testimony of things we have seen. We have in our country a Presidency which has positioned itself by the will of the people as operations centre of the fight against poverty and underdevelopment.
Yes, when the Black Child travels the world, putting issues of poverty, jobs and underdevelopment on the agenda of world bodies like the G8, the World Economic Forum and other distinguished bodies, we say this is the leader.
When the Black Child transverse Africa with the message of hope, peace and good governance, we proclaims! Proudly South African.
When the Black Child goes to the most remote areas of our country in humality, asking the masses of our country to listen and act on their tribulations and demands, we exclaim, behold the Leader, the Compatriot, a true African.
Honourable Pheko to rewrite history by the claim that the PAC organised and implemented the anti-pass laws campaign- he knows perfectly well that this is simply not true.
He conveniently forgets that it was ANC leaders leke Charlotte Makeke who were at fore of the campaigns against passes in 1918.
When women marhed in their thousands to Pretoria in 1956, ANC women leaders andn the Congress movement were at the helm. It took heroic struggles by the Federation of South African Women and the ANC's Women's League who gave leadership in 1958 and onwards.
The potato boycott of 1959, a revolt against "former labour scandal" exposed by Ruth First and other ANC leaders.
It was the ANC organisers who went across the length and breath of our country popularising the fight to the finish against pass laws.
On March 21st 1960 it was the Congress movement that has to organise legal and other support for the casualties of the Sharpville and Langa campaigns.
In Conclusion Honourable Members; there are very few South Africans who can launch a credible and sustainable argument that life in South Africa has, in general, not improved for the better. Yes there are problems-there will always be-but on the whole we are better off than we were in 1994. It is impossible to fathom where South Africa would be today had we not gone through the revolutionary political changes of February 1990, April 27 1994 and May 10 1994 (Sunday Independent, 8 February 2004: 8).
I thank you. Madam Speaker:
The ANC has throughout it's existence showed that the ANC is a home for all. We have achieved the biggest challenge of all, we have to restored the dignity of our people and our nation. Let me reflect on one situation which I call the battle of the pavements.
Not so long ago when I was still a young boy, I had to jump from the pavement when a white person is appraoching me from the opposite direction or even walking on the same side as I was doing at the time. Dare you have the nerve to walk on the pavement at the same time as the white person.
When the sirene went off at 21h00 in the evening it was time to vacate the streets or stand the chance of being arrested. If you dare to do some window shopping, as we normally do today before we buy an item, you were immediately charged with what was known as "Staan en Kyk".
If any person of colour was found on the street under the influence, he or she was locked up for 4 hours and charged for being drunk in public. Guess what happened to the whites at that time, "they were picked up from the streets for their own safety and then enjoyed a free ride, "nogal met amptelike staatsvervoer" to their homes.
These priveleges for the Whites were all part of the fringe benefits of being white, " in die Republiek". Today we can only laugh at these examples if you had never experience these things, but the ANC takes these sometimes insignificance things very seriously, because it made a difference to our lives. Especially for blacks who had been denied of these basic things, life is a great improvement and they will be forever grateful to the ANC.