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“The Freedom Front Plus views deputy president Motlanthe’s defence of affirmative action during his visit to the USA as immoral. The time has come for affirmative action to be phased out,” Adv. Anton Alberts, the Freedom Front Plus’ parliamentary spokesperson on labour said.

“The ANC has been in power in South Africa for sixteen years already and the public service has been over-transformed but the ANC is still busy reserving jobs based upon race. The ANC will have to indicate whether they see affirmative action as an instrument with which to make reparations or whether they see it as a permanent structure of the new regime,” he added.

“Deputy President Motlanthe also took up the cudgels for Jimmy Manyi and justified his distasteful and immoral statements. Mr. Motlanthe however led the audience up the garden path as various minority groups are under-represented on various levels in the public service.

The FF Plus established through a question addressed to the Minister of Labour in Parliament that minority groups are under-represented on the following levels in the public service:

• Top management: White and brown women are under-represented;
• Senior Management: Brown people are under-represented;
• Skilled technical and junior management level: Brown people and Indian men are under-represented;
• Semi-skilled level: White and Indian people are under-represented;
• Unskilled level: Whites and Indians are under-represented.

It is clear that the government still has a lot of work to do to offer minorities equal opportunities to find employment in the public service. It is due to blatant discrimination against white people that there is such an under-representation of this minority group in the public service. Both deputy president Motlanthe and Jimmy Manyi should apply the employment equity act as a whole to ensure fairness.