Together with one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, South Africa has a plethora of transformation related legislation to enable the economic empowerment of its citizens, previously (and currently) disadvantaged from the apartheid policies of economic exclusion.

Recently, another term has been bandied about quite a bit by politicians and the media in general: that of Radical Economic Transformation. But what is Radical Economic Transformation? Unless it is unpacked and is linked to a measurement tool, it will remain nothing more than a political mantra. Recently at the World Economic Forum, President Jacob Zuma said when SA talks about radical economic transformation, it means a change that will lead to inclusive growth. The President has also alluded to the fact that this would include forced land distribution, black ownership and management of companies, and the hiring and training of Black people - more importantly African and female South Africans.

The existing transformation laws address all of the above except two crucial points – the matter of land distribution (although agricultural land is partially covered in the Agribee B-BBEE Codes) and the focus on African vs. Black people in general.
The most prominent empowerment laws in the country are:

• Employment Equity Act (EEA),
• Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act and Codes
• Skills Development Act and Levies Act
• Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA)

One also needs to take into account various other sources and programmes such as the National Development Plan and the Black Industrialist Programme.

Why then with these various forms of legislation in place since as early as 2008 (The EE Act), is economic empowerment still not a reality for the majority of South Africans?  Perhaps the following issues contribute to the lack of Radical Economic Transformation:

Presently the transformation laws are “managed” by three government departments. Employment Equity is the domain of the Department of Labour, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment assigned to the Department of Trade and Industry and the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act falls under National Treasury.

This leads to complications and a lack of consistent application of the laws across the departments. There is little or no incentive for job creation in any of the above-mentioned legislation.

Complexity of the B-BBEE Legislation - Not only are the Codes (the measurement principles) badly drafted with many interpretational issues, but the formula for establishing scores is complex. This leads to unscrupulous applications of the codes and with few experts in the industry, this is difficult to detect.

No focus on African Economic Empowerment - The draft Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA) Amendments to the Regulations introduced the concept of providing additional preference points for African Women Owned Businesses. However the final version of the Amendments reverted to the definition of Black as being African, Indian and Coloured. 

This is a hugely politicised area which needs to be dealt with boldly by the law makers if radical economic transformation is to be a reality in South Africa. There has to be an historical acknowledgment that during apartheid Blacks were treated unfairly at different levels with Africans being discriminated against the most. The current transformation legislation now treats all Blacks equally.

There is an urgent need to have real statistics on the level of government and private sector procurement from African owned businesses in the country and that additional preference points are allocated for procurement from African owned businesses. Sadly none of our current transformation legislation allows for this.

The current legislation will need to be adjusted to provide for Radical Economic Empowerment. If the fundamental problems are not sorted out, it will sadly be more of the same another 23 years later.

Brigitte Brun is co-author of The Practical Guide to the Amended B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice for Specialised Entities, written with Maxi-Lee Machado and published by LexisNexis South Africa.