LETTER: Empowerment has killed economy
Black empowerment hasn’t worked, and throwing yet more money at it through Ramaphosa’s goal of investing R100bn over five years in “black-owned” companies is misguided
Albert Einstein’s alleged dictum that insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results could be applied to the recent jobs summit and specifically to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that the financial sector, as part of its transformation code, will invest R100bn over five years in “black-owned” companies. Ramaphosa and his decisionmakers still cannot accept that black empowerment is the major cause of SA’s flat-lining and job-shedding economy. Black empowerment hasn’t worked, and throwing yet more money at it won’t make it work any better. Elon Musk is an SA innovator of note who started major business enterprises in the US. There are thousands more like him. I have just returned from Australia where I met a number of former South Africans who created successful businesses. They did not create them in SA, because black empowerment made them feel so unwelcome that they emigrated. In SA’s state-owned enterprises black empowerment was given ful...
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