How BEE gives sweet riches to an inner hive
A coterie of politically connected black businesspeople has amassed extraordinary wealth, but the state remains outside the circuits of production, write Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass
The ANC took office committed to increasing the ownership and control of business by black people. Considerable effort went into the formulation and implementation of the black economic empowerment (BEE) legislation and regulations that compelled business to co-operate in the transfer of large shares of ownership and control to a new, black corporate elite. The close, informal links between black political and economic elites contrast with the mostly strained formal and informal links between ANC leadership and government ministers and the established white economic elite. The ANC-led government was initially slow to respond to the demands of black business people that it intervene to make it easier for them to amass wealth, only appointing a Black Economic Empowerment Commission in 1997. It was headed by former ANC chief negotiator and secretary-general Cyril Ramaphosa, who had left politics for business after losing the struggle to succeed Nelson Mandela. Even before the commissio...
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