LETTER: Godongwana’s push for draconian race quotas in the private sector will be useless

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana laments the lack of transformation in business. Only 15% of top management in the private sector is comprised of black Africans. He sees harsher race laws as the answer.

He should remember that the white apartheid government also set great faith by laws, until their whole race edifice collapsed — race laws are useless.

Success in life starts with the individual, at birth. Success and leadership in life are not a state function. The role of the state is to establish a safe environment and good education. The state should provide sound infrastructure,  a well-functioning civil service, law and order, and excellent education. This will open the way to  participation by all South Africans — the majority and the minorities —  in the private sector.

If black African managers have largely not succeeded — as Godongwana explicitly recognises — no amount of ever-more draconian race quotas will achieve a miracle. The state's role is to create a conducive environment.

WB Cronje, Cape Town