The World Bank has become the latest Western entity to attack South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment policy. The country’s affirmative-action initiative aims to address apartheid-era injustices by enabling historically marginalised Black people to participate in the economy.
In a new report, the Washington-based lender said South Africa needed to ‘relax’ its BEE drives, alleging that they are spurring corruption and inefficiency in public administration. The report advises the government to create jobs by attracting foreign investment rather than focusing on affirmative action.
Right-wing voices, both inside and outside South Africa, have for a long time opposed the country’s affirmative-action policies, claiming that they are an impediment to business and a form of ‘reverse racism.’ Among those voices is tech billionaire and Trump sidekick Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX has been unable to set up in South Africa because it fails to meet BEE regulations, which require firms operating in sectors such as telecommunications to be at least 30% owned by individuals from historically disadvantaged groups.
According to South African newspaper Daily Maverick, Musk unsuccessfully asked South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a September 2024 meeting to change the BEE policy to accommodate SpaceX. This raises the question of whether The World Bank’s latest intervention was externally influenced, especially given that fact that it had acknowledged the positive impact of BEE policies in the past.
For instance, in a 2018 report titled ‘An Incomplete Transition: Overcoming the Legacy of Exclusion in South Africa,’ the lender stated that ‘affirmative-action policies have reduced inequality between Black and White South Africans.’ So what’s changed?
Could it be that the Bank is dancing to the tune of the new pipers in Washington DC, who are opposed to policies that seek to redress injustices committed against Black people for centuries through slavery and settler-colonialism?
Sources
https://x.com/Our_DA/status/1639938403876651008
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/the-third-wave-of-bee-what-it-is-and-why-it-must-b