S’tru, there will always be people who take unfair advantage of government policy. Call them opportunists, capitalists, what you will, but you can be sure they exist.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel took the unusual step this week of telling the Financial Times that South Africa’s black economic empowerment (BEE) programme needs an overhaul. It certainly got the paper’s attention, and it ran the story as a lead.
Perhaps the minister was trying to signal to the world that he really is serious about getting to grips with the problem of companies recruiting black managers and board members simply as token appointments.
“They [his white partners] say, ‘We want you there. You are a good man. But actually we do not need you close to what we do. We will run the business, but we have bought an insurance policy through you,'” Manuel told the paper.
A recent study of JSE-listed companies showed that of a total of 697 directors, 66% were white and only 28% were black.
While few would disagree that BEE has been a success in going some way to redressing the economic imbalance brought about by apartheid, it is now time to take a closer look at it. This might ruffle a few feathers, but the time is right to review a policy whose critics say are only benefiting the elite.
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April 5 to 11
Working closely with the Central Intelligence Organisation’s directorate of counter-intelligence, Zanu-PF has been setting up secret death squads comprising members of the National Youth Service training programme.
Iranian newspapers wrote with glee on Thursday about the release of 15 British sailors and marines but some moderate dailies questioned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his handling of the issue.
The United States admitted openly for the first time on Thursday that it was actively working to undermine Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe.
George B is not even sure of his own surname. It’s not written down anywhere that he knows of because in the eyes of the Zimbabwean state he does not exist.
South Africa’s policy of black economic empowerment (BEE) is flawed and in need of review, the country’s finance minister said in an interview published on Tuesday.
South African President Thabo Mbeki’s mission to resolve the crisis across the border in Zimbabwe faces slim prospects of success due to deep-rooted suspicion between the protagonists, analysts say.
Was Jesus ‘the greatest socialist in history”, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez recently claimed?
The 15 British military personnel who had been held by Iran flew out of Tehran for England on Thursday, ending a two-week stand-off that strained already tense relations between Iran and the West.
The African National Congress (ANC) “hijacked” the funeral of Adelaide Tambo, wife of former ANC president Oliver Tambo, and therefore should pay the funeral costs, an Ekurhuleni opposition councillor said on Tuesday.
The man in the print shop where journalists were making copies of the latest judgement in the Jacob Zuma legal marathon, probably spoke for many middle-class South Africans when he asked why Zuma is so desperate to stop investigators getting access to those documents in Mauritius.