Should there be a sunset schedule for affirmative action in industry? Two key black intellectuals — Billiton SA’s Vincent Maphai and the University of Cape Town’s Loyiso Mbabane — have locked horns on this issue.
Black economic empowerment (BEE) is now mainstream policy and big business. With much BEE now framed by the Broad-Based BEE Act, there is hot debate about how earlier provisions and policies need to be adapted to fit in with it.
Affirmative action policies, preferential procurement and employment equity legislation — there is a complex array of incentives and policies in place to promote black power in management and the economy. Perhaps the time has come to accept that these are temporary measures.
“Ironically, the more vigorously and relentlessly these policies are applied today by the private sector, the less significant they will need to be in future. Business’s record has been pretty dismal to date,” argues Maphai, political scientist and chairperson of Billiton SA.
Affirmative action is a means, not a principle, in his view. As a restorative right, it draws its validity from a system of injustice and imbalance. As that changes, so it becomes less and less necessary.
In other words, race-based policies are only acceptable as a temporary bridging mechanism. Subject to certain objectives having been maintained, they may be discarded.
Mbabane, senior lecturer on BEE at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, disagrees that changes to the framework should be under consideration at this stage. Mbabane’s view is that it is too early in the transformation process to be able to perceive any movement on economic empowerment.
Yes, affirmative action is a limited tactic, as “it addresses a specific category of people: formal economy work-seekers, and the guiding principles of their hiring and promotion. Even rising numbers of black executives in senior positions do not necessarily privilege the transformation agenda in their companies,” he argues.
“A financial director or branch manager is not responsible for setting the national transformation agenda of a given company. Even if one was seeing half of top management becoming black, and with affirmative action and employment equity practices in place, the outlook for transformation is still limited.”
Here Mbabane and Maphai agree. Talking the talk about affirmative action, whether or not accompanied by legislation, makes no difference.
Maphai points out: “Business has been talking about affirmative action since 1970. Remember various manifestations like the Sullivan Code? If it had truly been acting then, we wouldn’t need it now. It is time for business to stop whingeing, see that it has missed opportunities in the past and will do so again if it doesn’t get its head around the new order.
“This bifocal approach to affirmative action is pointless. [It says]: ‘Here is our core business, over there is employment equity.’ So it is just a nuisance. If inclusiveness is part of your core human resources strategy and business culture, it becomes part of business enrichment that stabilises the business and profitability.”
What does Maphai think about sector charters? “Again, setting and negotiating charter targets should not just become a numbers game. Numbers should be a kind of radar, not the driver of your employment and empowerment strategy,” he says.
“But if you make the transformation objective part of your core business strategy, that is a step forward. Then your own dynamic will allow you to exceed the demands of the charter and approach it as a question of ethics and human dignity.”
Mbabane serves on the Department of Trade and Industry’s BEE task team, and has served as national director of Equal Opportunities Employment Equity in the Department of Labour. He sees the new Broad- Based BEE Act as the means to shift the shape of the economy as a whole.
He, too, says that setting charter targets is not enough. Nor, it seems, is ownership — he points to the untransformed character of a number of nominally black-owned companies.
Nonetheless, he believes the Act can now enable powerful, board-level interventions for the full spectrum of transformative shifts: ownership and management changes, skills transfer, social investment and procurement — and a different identity and place for black business in the national culture. The big issue for Mbabane is altering the nature of the generation and management of wealth in South Africa.
But Mbabane is not willing to consider waiving affirmative action, even if it is no longer the main lever for change.
“Affirmative action is the leading edge of a cluster of practices that embody socially inclusive and responsible values: fairness and equity, social accountability, promotion of diversity and inclusiveness, including that of the disabled and people with HIV/Aids.”
He makes a pointed analogy: “If we look at the example of some of our sports teams, they relax about representation when they have five black team members.
“They sit back, then have to panic when they lose one or two, because they have not developed the organic recruitment routes and structures that have transformed the recruiting network.”
Sue Brown is political analyst for the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation (IJR). Vincent Maphai and Loyiso Mbabane will be the main speakers at an IJR-hosted debate at the University of Cape Town on July 6, 5.30pm to 7pm, on the theme “Affirmative Action: Is It Any Use Anymore?”