Dear Editor
The Democratic Alliance (DA) rejects Minister Nomakhosazana Meth’s continued defence of the Employment Equity Amendment Act (EEA) and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) regulations despite overwhelming evidence that these laws are killing jobs, driving investment away, and benefitting only politically connected elites.
Yesterday, in the National Council of Provinces, Minister Meth once again decided to stick to her line on employment equity, despite facts contradicting everything she says. According to the minister racial quotas for employment are just “benchmarks”, yet the same regulations threaten businesses with fines of up to 10% of their annual turnover for “non-compliance”.
The Minister further claimed that the Employment Equity sectoral targets was developed after “extensive consultation”. In reality, the country’s largest business body, Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), has taken her department to court, arguing that these targets were developed on the fly, often giving employers less than 24 hours’ notice of the targets they would have to comment on, and changing sectoral targets without providing supporting data.
These contradictions expose the central problem: the ANC refuses to admit that the EEA and B-BBEE legislation is killing jobs while benefiting the rich. Placing a huge compliance burden on any company that employs over 50 people is an obvious disincentive for small businesses to grow and hire more people. South African businesses need to be free to grow and create jobs, rather than being forced to implement divisive, race-based quotas on behalf of the Minister of Employment and Labour.
Minister Meth insists the Act will not lead to the displacement of existing employees or to force dismissals to meet targets, yet she cannot explain how businesses are expected to comply with her quotas without doing so.
The DA refuses to accept these racial targets, and this is why we have taken Minister Meth to court and will continue to fight for the repeal of her unconstitutional amendments to the Employment Equity Act that give effect to these regulations.
Next week, the DA will be outlining our vision for real economic empowerment that will redirect millions in wasteful BEE spending away from a small politically connected elite towards the poor and most vulnerable communities across South Africa.
Regards
Sonja Boshoff MP
DA Member of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP)