The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes with interest the ANC in the Western Cape’s statement urging ‘caution’ on the national ANC government’s proposed changes to the Employment Equity Bill, and stating that they are “urgently prepar[ing] a submission to the office of ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe”.

What is quite peculiar is that, on the one hand, the ANC in the Western Cape now seems to admit there is a potential problem with the legislation. On the other hand, the ANC nationally continues to claim that the study detailed in Sunday’s City Press is some kind of racial ploy. Will the ANC now come around to the view of their colleagues in the Western Cape, that ‘something is wrong’?

We would also be interested to learn whether the comments attributed to Songezo Mjongile, the ANCWC Provincial Secretary, relating to the urgent submission to Mr. Mantashe, are endorsed by the ANC, and ANC leader in the Western Cape Marius Fransman. One would assume that an official ANC provincial communication is endorsed by the ANC’s provincial leader. It will be even more interesting to learn of Mr. Mantashe’s response.

From the outset, we warned that the raft of draft labour bills released by the Department of Labour last year would be detrimental for job creation in South Africa. The attempt to amend section 42 of the Employment Equity Act, which has caused such consternation this week, represents an attempt to impose national rather than provincial demographics as the qualifying criteria for employment equity compliance. The problem here is that by benchmarking against national rather than regional demographics, the Employment Equity Amendment Bill will require employers to scale back their employment of any race group that is highly concentrated in their region. In practical terms, this means that an employer in the Western Cape or Northern Cape will now be expected to show the Department of Labour that it is scaling back on coloured employees, and a firm in KwaZulu-Natal will need to show it is reducing its number of Indian employees. Likewise, a company based in Limpopo or Mpumalanga will need to show the Department of Labour it is scaling back on black employees, and hiring whites, Indians and coloureds. This is centralised planning on a grand scale; it places existing jobs in jeopardy, and it will stifle the creation of new ones.