Cape Town - The Freedom Front (FF) Plus claims that 600 000 white people have been forced to relocate to 460 informal settlements countrywide because of the ANC’s board-based black economic empowerment.
FF Plus parliamentary spokesman Anton Alberts has blamed the ANC, saying that its decision to push ahead with BBBEE had deprived white South Africans of employment and business opportunities.
“Young people don’t get work either and cannot start their own business due to BBBEE, as most business in the country, even if small enough to be exempted from BBBEE, get pulled into the orbit of transformation as the large businesses require strict adherence to this racial policy,” said Alberts.
He said a study by former University of Pretoria vice-chancellor Flip Smit had confirmed this.
But in his reply to Alberts’s parliamentary question, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies denied that any white person was suffering economically as a result of BBBEE.
“There has never been any research to reflect the unintended consequences of the BBBEE policy with regards to the impoverishment of white people; in this regard the department will welcome such study from the honourable member,” Davies said.
Alberts claimed that 90 of the 460 “white informal settlements” were in Pretoria, Cape Town, Joburg and Bloemfontein.
He said that many of the affected were former government employees retrenched to open opportunities for blacks.
“Many of these previous government employees are now too old to find other work. They end up in informal settlements or just die due to the stress of living in poverty,” Alberts said.
He threatened legal action and to mobilise whites and coloureds to revolt.
“And the world will know that apartheid has returned. I can add that Constitutional Court action will also be considered,” he said.
ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the ANC was committed to BBBEE policy because it had benefited blacks who were removed from the economy during apartheid.
“If others are only discovering imikhukhu (shacks) its bad for them.
“We know imikhukhu as we have lived in imikhukhu. If statistics are now showing that poverty has become colourless, that is something good we did as the ruling party,” Mthembu said.
He denied that BBBEE had mostly benefited those who were politically connected.
“Those who have become millionaires through BBBEE out of their own hard work would feel insulted if they hear people saying that their success was because of political connection.” Alberts’s complaint against BBBEE comes a year after the 12th Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) annual report revealed that white men continued to enjoy preference in the workplace over their African, coloured and Indian and women counterparts.
It showed that white men occupied 55.2 percent of top management positions nationally across all employment spheres, African men 13 percent, followed by Indian men at 5.9 percent and coloured men at 3.3 percent.
In the private sector, whites’ share of top management positions had dropped only from 68.1 percent in 2007 to 65.4 percent in 2012, while African representation was 18.5 percent. For Indians, it was 7.5 percent and coloureds 4.8 percent.
Western Cape Shack Dwellers - Sourced from Census 2011
Number of households excluding backyard dwellers:
Black/African Coloured Indian/Asian White
West Coast 5145 1 021 19 29
CapeWinelands 16639 2855 32 71
Overberg 6541 794 12 34
Eden 10140 3685 17 86
Central Karoo 26 151 - 6
City of Cape Town 134914 7531 141 387
- Cape Times
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