LETTER: Affirmative action thwarts growth

Remember AA (affirmative action)? It has been swallowed up in an acronym soup — BEE, BBBEE, EE and cadre deployment (no acronym for that yet). All of these versions of socioeconomic ethnic engineering jostle under the AA umbrella.

But if the purpose of AA is to help black people compete — and innovate — in the mainstream economy, it has largely failed. Any policy of social engineering must align positively with societal dynamics. In SA we have a misalignment due to the demographic imperative embedded in this policy.

If, in terms of the demographic imperative, over 80% of leading roles throughout the economy must be the preserve of black people, there is no need for them to compete with — and hence learn from — experienced minorities. Perversely, it rather makes sense for the majority to cultivate political connections. As job allocations are politicised via cadre deployment, one’s political loyalty is the major criterion.

The unfortunate result is that our AA policy has generally had an adverse effect on those it was meant to benefit. Or has it? If the intention of this policy was to keep ANC supporters happy and the ANC in power, it has been a success — up to now. The downside has been the establishment of a culture that places colour above ability. The result, unsurprisingly, is that our economy is stagnating. The majority have — for the most part — had little incentive to acquire and multiply the skills needed in a modern economy.

Brian Kantor writes that “growth will solve our fiscal problem” (“Yes, we have a fiscal problem — and growth is the solution” September 22). Quite right. However, if the majority are largely incentivised to pursue politically engineered posts, and are not challenged to develop their potential via competition with the historically skilled minorities, we cannot grow.

Our cruel dilemma is that AA has been utilised not to build skills, but to buy political support. To enable growth we need to find an alternative mechanism to fund political parties.

Willem Cronje
Cape Town

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