Date: 10/02/2004
Souce: ANC
Title: Goniwe: Speech during State of the Nation debate


SPEECH BY MR MBULELO GONIWE, DURING THE DEBATE ON THE STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS

Chairperson, Honourable President, Deputy President, Ministers; Deputy Ministers and Members:

I would like to use my limited time to again restate the case for Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). We have explained this time and again to the nation at large and to this August House and yet the divisive backward, racist inspired argument still persists for obvious reasons.

Contrary to the distorted shortsighted argument by the likes of Tony Leon, Koos van der Merwe and all those who seek to keep the Black people and Africans in particular at the fringes of the mainstream economy in our country.

The ANC approach has always been informed by the understanding that Black and White do not only share one country, but also a common destiny. The ANC has identified the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, of poverty and underdevelopment as the common enemy that confronts all our people.

The BEE process has indeed been triggered by the past economic equalities that were systematically created by the apartheid regime to exclude blacks from the mainstream economy.

Therefore Black Economic Empowerment is one of the key instruments designed to confront this legacy head-on. Only those who want this legacy to endure are opposed to BEE.

The BEE Commision defines BEE as an integrated and coherent socio-economic process located within the context of the country's national transformation programme, namely the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which is aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past by seeking to substantially and equitably transfer and confer ownership, management and control of South Africa's financial and economic resources to the majority of its citizens. Furthermore, it seeks to ensure broader and more meaningful participation in the economy by black people to achieve sustainable development and prosperity (BEECom, 2001).

Black Economic Empowerment categorises people in certain stages of economic development as follows:

1. The first category represents those people living at the poverty line. They represent the people living in absolute poverty and without the basic needs and access to skills and will find it difficult to be entrepreneurs.

2. The second category represents those people living in economic survival sector. They are stable income earners but need additional training to become entrepreneurs.

3. The third category represents the economically ready group. They possess the neccessary skills and intellectual resources to become fully economically empowered but they need access to finance, preferential procurement, enterprise development, etc.

4. The fourth category represent the economic empowered group who exercise ownership, management and control over economic resources and are fully integrated into the mainstream economy. The expansion of the proportion represented by PDIs in this group remains one of the primary objectives of the BEE process.

In the last State of the Nation address before the 2004 general elections, Honourable President, it has been confirmed that each of these categories has benefited largely from the BEE process.

Everything that has been done by the ANC was aimed at empowering blacks, not because of their colour, but because they are the most disadvantaged sector in the economy that bore the brunt of oppression and is the most affected by the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. The approach that seeks to create division amongst Africans and Coloureds is a total mispresentation of the reality of what has happened in the past decade. The reality is that we have a number of successful interventions in all these categories over the past decade in the area of BEE.

In the first category the following achievements can be highlighted as follows:

* About 1.9 million housing subsidies have been provided and 1.6 million houses built for the poor of our country;
* More than 70% households have been electrified;
* 9 million additional people now have access to clean water;
* 63% of households now have access to sanitation;
* There has been successful formation of an integrated education system, even though there is a clear need for more resource allocation and capacity building in poor areas;
* Nutrition and early childhood interventions have been established to improve better results for children from poor backgrounds; and
* By 2002 secondary school enrolment had reached 85%.

In the second category I have used trhe example of PetroSA which defines BEE in terms of capacity building, employment equity, affirmative procurement, equity participation, financial and other support, supplier development and social development. During the 2002/03 financial year PetroSA has spend the following on BEE programmes:

* R469 million was spend on procuring goods and services from Black businesses;
* R83million on human capital development;
* R15.6 million on human resource development/ training;
* R8.8 million on capacity building programmes; and
* R50 million on projects in education, health, environment and entrepreneurship.

In the third category I have used the example of Eskom whose statistics on Black Economic Empowerment programmes showed that from 1996 until 2002 the BEE target for PDIs was set at R10 139.50 million, but they managed to distribute R13 756.00 million towards BEE programmes.

The black shareholding in companies that benefit from BEE programmes varies from a minimum of 20% held by Black consortiums to 100% Black owned and controlled companies.

Some of these companies are:

1. Malesela Taihan electrical (Pty) Ltd with 50% Black ownership;
2. Eyesizwe Coal (Pty) Ltd with 50% Black ownership;
3. Tswelopele Engineering (Pty) Ltd with 50% Black ownership;
4. Sebenza Forwarding and Shipping with 100% Black ownership; and
5. Ukhozi Logistics with 100% Black ownership.

In the last category, recent studies has shown that Black ownership of the JSE top 100 companies has increased substantially from less than 4% in 1997 to approximately 10% in 2002 in the resources, financial, industrial, services, consumer goods and ICT sector on the JSE.

Today BEE Companies invest appromiately R150 billion in the equity market on the JSE. BEE Companies however only ownes 9% of the market on the JSE and opens opportunites for BEE companies to engage in mergers and aquisitions within the private sector.

We have not stopped there, the study continues by indicating that the number of directors in the top 100 companies has increased from 14 (1.2%) in 1992 to 156 (13%) in 2002, a 1114.3% increase. The same study showed that the number of executive directors in the top 100 companies has also increasd from 1 (0.2%) in 1992 to 24 (5.2%) in 2002, a 2400% increase and still Mr Tony Leon dares to say in a recent article in the Mail and Guardian, i.e. 30 January 2004 to 5 February 2004, that the Black Youth is suffering because of this government's so called policy of Black Economic Empowerment.

In celebrating the decade of freedom, a conducive environment for all talented sons and daughters of this land has been created enable them to reach the best of their potential.

The ANC recognise and applaud the pioneering role played by the petroleum - and mining industry and the finance sector. We equaly encourage other sectors to follow these examples because it is the right thing to do.

But is this really what we as Parliamentarians do in the implementation of government policies of which we are part. Please allow me for a brief moment to examine this predicament through the follies of our time.

I have observed in my time as a Member of this house that some Members have fine tuned the Judas approach, i.e. kiss him and betray him. These Members heap praises on the ANC achievements and the President and at the next immediate turn they betray the ANC and the President, insult what it represents and distort its policies.

When the Honourable Seremane spoke, tried this, " Sir we know you; you are fooling no-one but yourself. When he spoke I remembered a recitation we were forced to recite when we were very young, entitled: " Wag hondjies- Watch dogs, and went on as follows:

Ek is hier en ma is hier. I am here and mother is also here. Ons l