MARK BURKE: BEE apologists leave us with no country for young people

Some relics of the 1990s deserve to stay in the 1990s. The fax machine, low-rise jeans and a romanticised view of BEE. Unfortunately some discourse in the past few weeks has been seized with defending the outdated and ineffective idea of BEE.  

In his recent column former Sowetan editor John Dludlu argues for doubling down (“Let’s talk about strengthening BEE”, June 4). He presents no empirical evidence, just vibes and anecdotes, to support his claim that the policy has succeeded.

Dludlu argues that BEE was never meant to address inequality. But if it’s not about reducing disparities in ownership and opportunity, what exactly is it for? His defence raises the uncomfortable possibility that BEE has always been about benefiting a connected elite. 

This aligns with Dludlu’s condescending suggestion that elites are necessary to front BEE deals because ordinary people supposedly can’t organise or navigate politics on their own. The history of our country, rich with grassroot struggles against elite injustice, suggests otherwise. The elites do not need apologists and they don’t need more enrichment from BEE.

While it’s encouraging to see the edifice cracking, as illustrated by the need to write this piece, it’s weird to see Dludlu defending the policy as having been given a bad name. Like anyone with a poor credit score will tell you, a bad name is something you did to yourself.

There’s another problem in this analysis: if a third of a column is spent reciting the philanthropy efforts of broken BEE beneficiaries, then something is off. We’ve created a massively inefficient means of taxing the economy. This model says shareholders should hand over a third of successful business equity on the unenforceable hope that nonfounder business-adjacent billionaires might one day distribute a fraction of their gains to society.

Like the floppy disk, BEE is a policy whose time has passed. There is scant empirical evidence that BEE has reduced inequality and there’s growing evidence that it’s holding back economic growth.

While it’s exciting to see that we’re starting the slaughter of some previously holy cows hobbling the economy, unfortunately we still sometimes seem to be talking around other issues. We all know what the problems are: mind-blowing regulatory hurdles and cumbersome procurement practices. Government agencies that think of compliance as a job creator, instead of protecting us from white-collar abuse.  

It is pointless to argue about whether jobs and wealth are being fairly distributed when so few jobs and growth are being created in the first place. It’s a race to the bottom. It's increasingly not a country for young people. It’s a land where growth and opportunities are stunted by elites protecting failed policies, grasping at relevance while stuffing their pockets.

It’s a world where old editors defend old policies benefiting old politicians. For sure some of them can stay, but that should be on a current value added basis. Not nostalgia. 

While no-one can claim to speak for all young South Africans, it is the case in 2025 that all of us yearn for tangible progress, not an obsession over which group is getting poorer the fastest. Our generation wants income and houses, not collapsing infrastructure. We want the value of property to start going up, rather than falling due to service non-delivery.

We want the hope of being better off than our parents, not the prospect of being poorer because of an economy and body politic obsessed with protecting dated and ineffective ideas such as BEE.  

• Burke is DA finance spokesperson.