The African National Congress’s (ANC) version of affirmative action was based on ”racial categorising”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said in Parliament on Thursday.
DA safety and security spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard criticised the ruling party’s ”refusal to define how exactly it would determine someone’s race”.
She said that at its core the ANC’s affirmative action policies contained a principle no different to that which underpinned apartheid legislation.
Asked how the DA would determine race in terms of affirmative action, Kohler-Barnard replied: ”I don’t believe we should be determining race.”
If a person was disadvantaged, it did not mean they were black, or Indian, or coloured or white.
”A person was previously disadvantaged if they were economically deprived [or] educationally deprived,” she said.
According to a DA statement issued at the briefing, if two candidates of equal ability but ”differing race” apply for a job, the ”previously disadvantaged” person should be preferred.
Earlier, she released a DA report on affirmative action in the South African Police Service (SAPS).
The document, titled Re-Racialising South Africa’s Police Force, says not all previously disadvantaged groups benefit equally from the SAPS employment equity plan.
”The plan seeks to reduce the number of Indians [at all management levels] and coloured people [at middle and lower management levels] in the police force between now and 2010.”
The target for ”female representivity” was also extremely small — a 1% increase over four years.
”The SAPS employment equity plan fails to achieve demographic representivity, fails to address the plight of all previously disadvantaged groups, and, in particular, fails to address the role that women should play in our country’s police force.”
According to the plan, by 2010 women ”would represent only an average of 30% of the SAPS, when they currently represent over 50% of the population”.
The document says affirmative action policies in South Africa ”skim the surface of the apartheid-era racial classification laws”.
Kohler-Barnard said race-based affirmative action was ”odious”.
Earlier this year, the DA accused the government of stubbornly refusing to admit that the affirmative action policy is at the core of South Africa’s skills crisis.
During a media briefing at Parliament, DA spokesperson Mark Lowe emphasised that the DA is not opposed to affirmative action to address the imbalances of the past, but rather has a problem with the way it is being implemented.
Lowe said it is recognised that the government is simply unable to deliver properly because it lacks the capacity to turn policy into reality. — Sapa