I am certain I am not the only one whose head sometimes spins from trying to keep up, decipher, interpret, reinterpret and pronounce on the monotonous debates, rantings and declarations on black economic empowerment. Everyone is an expert on BEE in a similar way to the enthusiastic football spectator regarding a coach debilitatingly overlooked for the top job, which on many a Saturday exceeds in importance that of being the country’s president.
The incessant commentary has reached such a fever pitch that I am beginning to empathise with Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the movie Catch Me If You Can. In it, Frank Abagnale, Jr grew up listening to his father’s near-hallucinatory victim routine, which blamed the IRS for his misery and advocated outsmarting it. In response, Frank became a very smart delinquent, living under numerous identities that gave him access to any job he wanted in all of America. His most famous role was that of an airline pilot. Anything was possible and everything could be had: money, sex, status … Of course, this also meant he was permanently on the run, like a rat on a treadmill, afraid of being discovered for being just the guy next door with none of his acquired tastes. His father was incapable of and unwilling to correct his son’s perceptions of life, overjoyed that his son was “achieving” incredible things. The further Frank pushed the boundaries, the more desperate he became for his father to call off the charade — and the clearer it became that his father was never going to.
Every day thousands of South Africans, both black and white, are planning and pursuing the next BEE deal with similar fervour. Out of sheer curiosity, I have dabbled in about three, enlisted by those who think my name, gender, race or overall creed has some value to add to their fledgling enterprise that, in just a few weeks, could render them multi-millionaires. It is a world of its own, entailing great time commitment, sleuth-like investigative research, moral dilemmas and an ever-present promise of glorious salvation.
Pursuing a transaction is not something one can do in one’s spare time. One is invited primarily because one supposedly boasts a sphere of influence, either in the public or private sector, or an undefined yet critical space somewhere in between. Either way, one is expected to work those phones.
The average consortium is painstakingly choreographed, with members dropping in and out throughout the build-up to the deciding fundraising for the assets at stake. Needless to say, some work the phones and paper trail harder than others. At the mid- to lower-end, where most deals take place, depending on the stature and smarts of the lead partner, the consortium members can comprise a mixture of tired, broke and exceedingly desperate individuals, with well-meaning, bright-eyed, hard-working youngsters and hopeful, yet cynical, advisory firms.
Chances of success in these transactions are, I don’t know, one in eight? One encounters sharks posing as middle-men whose core competency lies in promising to connect you to critical decision-makers, having one part with risk-based success fees or shares on a daily basis like thieves in the night. The three zeros behind the five- to six-digit figures keep one going and fill one’s dreams with grandeur.
Slowly one’s day job takes a backseat as the process becomes all-consuming and the stakes are continually raised. One anticipates the disruption will only last for a few weeks and one will soon be working for sport as opposed to survival. One week turns to a month, and then six months and so forth.
Quite honestly, most of the people engaged in this human rat race are married men with children, and I have always wondered how they negotiate the bills with their spouses as they inevitably reach the cash-flow drought that still somehow guarantees them middle- to upper-class social status. It would be stupid for them to give up now, we all understand. The pot of gold is around the corner after all. That is the most commonly found form of BEE we do not get to read about in the media.
On the other hand, far away from the glare of the insatiable gratification of gilded holy grails, one meets many talented individuals working diligently at becoming wonderful opera singers, fine artists, writers, dancers, filmmakers, lawyers and bankers. These young individuals provide the backbone to a society that is overshadowed, unjustifiably, by BEE. Something tells me to catch them — if we can.