THE ANC government has since coming into power gone backwards in increasing black management control of the economy and giving economic opportunities to black women and the youth.
This was the admission of President Cyril Ramaphosa in his weekly newsletter when he pointed out that despite the black empowerment policies adopted by the governing ANC, the majority of black people were still economically marginalized.
“While there has been significant progress over the last two decades, there are some areas where there has been regression. We have gone backwards when it comes to increasing black management control, up scaling skills development, entrenching enterprises development and broadening procurement to give opportunities to black women and the youth.
“The apartheid government deliberately built a distorted economy designed to benefit white people. The majority of South Africans were marginalised from the mainstream economy, with black entrepreneurs confined to small retail industries in the townships,” wrote the president.
He added that at the end of apartheid, black ownership of JSE-listed companies was less than 1% and this figure has not improved much in the past 28 years.
Ramaphosa said despite these setbacks of advancing black business empowerment, the government’s commitment to entrench this policy was unwavering and he has communicated this when he addressed the Black Business Council, where he also highlighted the state of broad based black economic equity and the gains made and what needed to be done.
Having said that, Ramaphosa added, there had been important private sector initiatives and deliberate measures by the state to facilitate greater and more meaningful participation of black people in the economy.
He did not elaborate on the measures but revealed that between 2017 and 2020, about 500 empowerment transactions were submitted for registration. He said in key sectors such as construction, property, information and communications technology, as well as tourism and transport, black ownership has gone beyond targets.
“Economic transformation and economic growth are intertwined. There cannot be one without the other. By integrating transformation into the process of industrialisation, we are advancing a more inclusive growth model that shares, rather than concentrates, wealth.
“Through sectoral masterplans we are driving localisation that benefits black owned businesses. For example, 10 black contract growers have been established with an investment of R336 million as part of the poultry masterplan. Government has also launched a black exporters network that will connect black-owned companies in food, engineering products, auto components, beauty products and other sectors of the economy,” he said.
Ramaphosa said as part of government plan to drive and create a new generation of black industrialists, the government last year approved R2,5 billion in new support to about 180 black industrialists in the form of loans and grants.
Over the next three years, a further R21 billion has been committed by institutions to support black industrialists and additional R25 billion has been committed to support black, women, youth and worker-owned companies.
“It is clear that much more work needs to be done to address the many challenges that black businesses face. This includes the difficulty of accessing start-up and expansion capital, and the ability of SMMEs to find markets for their products. Black women-owned businesses, in particular, encounter difficulties in taking on large-scale empowerment transactions,” the president wrote.
