CHRISTOPHER RUTLEDGE: DA’s assault on employment equity masks the real threat

The DA has gone to court to challenge the Employment Equity Amendment Act, arguing that government-mandated demographic targets are unconstitutional and damaging to the economy. But this legal assault on transformation policies is a cynical distraction, one that obscures the deeper truth — the greatest threat to SA’s democratic promise is not employment equity but the persistence of apartheid’s economic architecture, now managed by a new political elite. 

The DA claims that race-based redress fuels unemployment. It is a seductive argument, but a false one. If economic exclusion were the fault of transformation policies, mining-affected communities — sitting atop trillions of rand in extracted mineral wealth — would be thriving. Instead, they are living proof that the economic engine of SA continues to enrich the few at the expense of the many. 

In our soon-to-be-released report, “Looted Promises: The Crumbs Economy of Mining and the Myth of the Just Transition, the Mining Affected Communities United in Action and Women Affected by Mining United in Action” movements expose the brutality of exclusion faced by the black majority in mining-affected communities.

Drawing on data from 11 social audits across the country, the report paints a sobering picture: 

• Overall unemployment across the audited mining-affected communities stands at 72%; 
• Among young people aged 18—35, the rate climbs to an astronomical 83%; and
• 78% of social & labour plan (SLP) projects audited were either incomplete, nonexistent, or implemented without meaningful community input.

These figures are not aberrations. They reflect a structural economy that was never dismantled — only rebranded. Communities are promised jobs, development and inclusion. What they receive instead are ghost projects, exclusion from planning processes and the pollution of their land, air and water

Meanwhile, mining companies continue to post record profits — more than R1-trillion in turnover in 2024 alone — and channel those gains to shareholders and politically connected elites. This is the “crumbs economy” in action: the deliberate containment of redistribution to token gestures and short-term handouts, while the foundations of wealth remain untouched. 

The DA’s convenient amnesia

The DA wants to erase this context. It argues that the Western Cape — with its relatively lower unemployment rate — proves that employment equity is unnecessary. But this narrative collapses under scrutiny.

Stats SA’s latest data shows that the City of Cape Town has an expanded unemployment rate of 32.9%. In non-metro parts of the province, where many black and coloured residents live, discouraged job seekers and youth unemployment are well above the provincial average. The DA may point to macro-level metrics, but on the ground, racialised poverty remains entrenched.

To claim that employment equity is the source of economic hardship while ignoring these structural realities is dishonest. It protects privilege by scapegoating transformation. 

The ANC’s complicity

But let us not pretend that the problem is the DA alone. The ANC must shoulder the blame for gutting the very policies meant to achieve redress. Broad-based BEE could have been a transformative tool. Instead, it became a looting platform — captured by political elites, abused for tenders and patronage, and weaponised to justify wealth accumulation by a few in the name of the many. 

In the mining sector the ANC has overseen the collapse of accountability mechanisms. SLPs — legally binding development commitments — are left to wither without enforcement. Communities are excluded from planning and denied ownership stakes in the resources under their feet. This failure has given cynics like the DA the ammunition they now use to attack redress itself. 

We must be clear: the failure of BEE does not mean redress is unnecessary. It means we need to rescue redress from the elites who betrayed it. 

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater 

Yes, we demand good governance. Yes, transformation must be transparent, community-led and accountable. But abandoning equity altogether — as the DA proposes — is not a solution. It is a return to the unjust status quo. If anything, the failure of elite-driven BEE proves that we need more grassroots accountability, not less redress. 

SA’s future does not lie in court challenges designed to protect privilege. It lies in ensuring that policies like employment equity are strengthened, enforced and reimagined in ways that empower those who have been structurally excluded for generations. 

As our Looted Promises report shows, the so-called “just transition” is a myth if it continues to sideline those most affected. It’s time we stopped blaming equity for the failures of greed — and started demanding justice for the communities that were promised the world and given nothing but dust. 

• Rutledge is executive director of the Mining Affected Communities United in Action and Women Affected by Mining United in Action advice office.