LETTER: Let need be the basis

I refer to Yacoob Abba Omar’s most recent column (“Melange of manifestos, but no easy walk to economic freedom,” March 27).

He says, “there is little a small, open economy such as SA can do about the global economy”.

I propose Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Netherlands, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand as examples of small countries that have done, and continue to do, quite well.

The areas where co-operation between business and the government are apparently about to yield results (soon, very soon, just not quite yet), are all the things government made worse. Logistics, power, state capacity ... the ANC broke them and has now appealed to the private sector to help fix them. Yet that is posited as a reason to vote for the ANC?

I don’t think any party is arguing for an end to assistance to people who have been left behind. The issue is that assistance to compete fairly is not the same as race-based privileges. The black child of a millionaire is not disadvantaged, and is not entitled to special treatment.

In the hands of the ANC, affirmative action has become an excuse for elite self-dealing and patronage. Setting aside its moral turpitude, the policy lies at the very heart of state capture, load-shedding, the deterioration of transport logistics and so on.

Until it is fixed, nothing else will get better. The test for government assistance should be need, not melanin, and certainly not party affiliation.

Johan Prins
Via BusinessLIVE

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