If the economy is being held to ransom by a minority of white people then surely the answer is to make the cost of doing business for entry entrepreneurs of all colours extremely low and extremely fast?
Rather than ‘forcing’ the minority of people who hold the capital into BBBEE?
Learn from the past and grow a new South African economy made up of people who were born after 1994.
Just like the Afrikaners did when they got pissed off with the English Colonialists…
BUT, this time learn from the past and ensure that the economy lands in the hands of the many and not the few, lest we have a repeat of the current situation.
Transcript of the exchange between FF Plus leader, Corne Mulder, and President Cyril Ramaphosa, Parliament, 27 May 2025
Dr Corne MULDER (FF Plus leader): Hon President, thank you for a very comprehensive reply. An impressive reply … making it very clear all the steps that are being taken by government.
If there’s one thing that the Government of National Unity I think have in common is the commitment to economic growth.
A lot of things … the things you mentioned this afternoon are in terms of Operation Vulindlela, and we accept that. And if I understand it correctly it means to open the way. But the way is not open. There’s a problem with the way, with all due respect.
I want to say that if you look at the World Bank’s report, it clearly indicates that the average growth at the moment for developing countries is around 4%. If you look at the top 10 African countries, the growth rates there vary between … the lowest 5,9% to 7,9%.
Even in terms of all the things that you have now mentioned this afternoon, your own Minister of Finance to the budget last week indicated that our current growth rate is 1,4%, hopefully next year 1,6%, despite all the programmes, hopefully in the year thereafter 1,8%; while unemployment is 32%.
Something is wrong. There’s a huge problem and the problem, hon President, is that all the issues that you mentioned … all the wonderful programmes and the investments, as far as I’m concerned, are based on the current economic policy of government, the underlying economic policy.
Now, that’s why I ask the question specifically: Are you prepared to take the initiative and to take the necessary steps to amend, to develop an economic policy that can make possible real economic growth in South Africa? Because that’s what we need.
If you don’t have real economic growth, none of the programmes that you have mentioned will be successful, none of them will be implemented. But that real new economic policy, as far as I’m concerned, needs to take a different approach with regard to certain basic things that I don’t know if you are prepared to do that, with regard to black economic employment, BEE, regarding equity … employment equity … [Inaudible.] … without compensation. Are you prepared to that? Thank you, sir.
The PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC (Cyril Ramaphosa): Hon Deputy Speaker, I did say that the Government of National Unity is going to spend a considerable amount of hours in a number of days to come, just discussing the economic strategy and trajectory that we should pursue.
Our ambition, hon member … Dr Mulder, is to make sure that our economy grows higher than what the projections are currently. That is our ambition.
The Medium-Term Development Plan gives the pointers of where we should be going.
What the Minister of Finance also articulated on this platform, also gives the pointers of where we are headed.
I’m rather surprised and taken aback when I hear that policies of black economic empowerment militate against the growth of our economy. That, I find quite surprising because I work from the starting point that our economy was held back over many years by the racist policies of the past.
Those racist policies … those racist policies prevented all South Africans or the majority of South Africans to play a meaningful role in the economy of their own country. They were brought in … black people were brought in as hewers of wood and drawers of water, and they were just brought in as labourers. They were not even seen as consumers. They were not seen as active players in the economic landscape of our country.
With democracy, what has now been happening and when we … what we seek to see happening is the opening up of the economy, the broadening up of economic participation. Which, if you observe, hon Dr Mulder, you will actually see and it’s right in your face … you know … in apartheid South Africa, if you looked, for instance, at adverts for commodities, you would never see a black person being made to advertise either soap or milk or anything. Today, every advert you look at, has got black people, because it’s now been realized that it is black people who are the consumers and they are economic players.
Now, those who would want black people just to play the consumer role are truly mistaken, black people must play a productive role as well.
So, I am really baffled. I’m baffled by people who still hanker for policies of the past. And to have you sir, saying black economic empowerment is holding our economy back, goes completely against even what the World Bank says … [Interjections.]
Now … now … This, I find quite surprising because what is known very clearly as well is that … and a few years ago the World Bank and the IMF came up with a report that one of the things that holds South Africa’s economy back from growth, is the level of concentration. Concentration, because they said the ownership of the economy is in far too few hands, ownership has not spread. That is what the World Bank and IMF said. And that is precisely what happens in other countries.
When you go to other countries you’ll find the citizens … I mean, in Africa it will largely be black people, wherever you go in the world it will be the citizens. In our country it was just the few privileged, and may I continue to say white people, who continue to own the means of production, who continue to own the productive economy of our country … [Interjections.] …
AN HON MEMBER: You took them to America …
The PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC: … now, this, I find very worrying. I find it very worrying that we continue to have this notion that BEE is the one that’s holding our economy back. It is the partial and exclusive ownership of the means of production in our country that is holding this economy from growing.
What we seek to do, as set out in the equality clause in our Constitution, to redress the imbalances of the past … if we accept that the ownership of our economy is imbalanced, the clause on equality in our Constitution seeks to undo that, to redress that. So, therefore, ownership of our economy should be broadened.
And I can tell you, Dr Mulder, there’s nothing that gives our people joy, particularly black people, as they go around and they find that this production facility is owned by a black person; it warms one’s heart. It makes us feel so good because we’ve come from a horrible past when that was not allowed by law, where people were arrested. If you wanted to set up an economic facility in town, you were put to jail. But today we are saying all that must be put behind us.
We must allow more and more people to play an important role in the economy of our country. And this is what baffles me by those who are opposed to black economic empowerment. I say, what did you want to see happening? Do you want to see black people continuing to play the role of labourers, drawers of water, hewers of wood and consumers only? Why can’t black people be made to own productive aspects of … [Inaudible.] … why can’t they be rich as well? That is what needs to happen. Because it is when they get to that level …
Dr Mulder, you look at the Afrikaners, the history of your people. If you look at the history of your people, they were held back by the English. And with later days they were enabled, they became more and more economically empowered. And they became economically empowered due to the policies of apartheid, the laws that were put in place, the sweet deals that they were given and they started getting more and more into being serious economic players. Why can’t the same be done for black people? Why?
This baffles me. Really, I just … I don’t understand it. Because to me that is the normal thing to do. You need, as a nation to say, this group has been disempowered. It’s been disempowered; we need to empower it. Like the approach we have now. The rural areas of our country have been disadvantaged and we’re seeking to direct more and more assistance and empowerment to the rural areas so that the rural areas also come up.
Now, anyone who will tell me that that is wrong, really, I think they must have their heads examined because that cannot be the case.
So, my answer, therefore, is, our objective is to spread economic participation broadly and I will hold on to the argument that the more we have previously disadvantaged people playing a role in the economy of their own country, the better it is … [Interjections.] … because then we are able to make a much bigger cake so that everyone participates in having the cake. Thank you very much.
