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One of the most pernicious aspects of the old apartheid regime was the classification of people according to their skin colour. It was the foundation of the entire system. Added to compulsory identity books, it was how the government began the awful process of herding humans like sheep into their designated corrals.

To put it politely, the apartheid bureaucrats might just as well have tried herding cats. The task was impossible without draconian police powers. Attempting it soon earned the country the title of World Polecat, one reason being that the last country that tried such social engineering was Nazi Germany.

Now, here we are in 2021 with our anti-apartheid Government making another futile attempt at grand-scale social engineering – by introducing a Bill that if passed by Parliament will force every business in the country to employ staff, not for their skills or even for their aptitudes.

Instead, simply and foolishly we are all once again to be divided according to skin colour. 

The intention is to force every business in the country to have a staff complement that reflects the demographics of the South African population. 

This Bill in its scope and intention is comparable to the Group Areas Act, the Pass Laws, the Coloured Labour Preference Area in the old Cape Province, and indeed to the Bantustan system – all of which rightly aroused universal condemnation, and led ultimately to the Border Wars and the deaths of thousands of South Africans.

To monitor such a law, police it, and punish those who disobey it, will require an army of inspectors added to an already-over-manned, overpaid, under-qualified civil service.

As for the possibility of ever attracting foreign investment that will provide real productive jobs, it will disappear forever should such racial and ideological insanity reach the Statute Book. It will be seen for what it is, Apartheid in reverse.

Issued by The Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry