Owning a fleet of taxis was the epitome of success for aspiring black entrepreneurs in the 80s and pre-94. The taxis industry grew at an alarming rate, much to the chagrin of white-controlled public transport. Invariably, we could see that black people were capable of running their own businesses.
We saw high-profile figures; people like ex Orlando Pirates player and football club owner, Jomo Sono, venturing into business. Sono became one of the ground-breaking franchisees by owning the first KFC franchise in a township p.Enter 1994, and the first democratic elections came and black people names started getting prefixes such as Board Member, M.D and CEO. Thami Mazwai, whom most people had known as a journalist, headed a publishing company. We had known such black people to write for the magazines we read. Not to run publications. Excited as I was about seeing such shifts, white people continued to own a lion’s share of the economy. This was confirmed by a report released by the World Bank a year ago: Here are some of the findings of the report:
• Consumption inequality across the SACU region is found to be more than 40 percent higher than the averages for both Sub-Saharan Africa and upper-middle-income countries.
• South Africa, the largest country in SACU, is the most unequal country in the world, ranking first among 164 countries in the World Bank’s global poverty database. Botswana, Eswatini, and Namibia are among the 15 most unequal countries, and despite recent improvements, Lesotho still ranks among the top 20 percent, the report shows.
• At least one fifth of inequality in SACU is explained by inherited circumstances such as location, gender, age, parental background and when race is included in the analysis, the contribution of inequality of opportunity more than doubles. The World Bank report suggests promoting policy measures that foster equality of opportunity and address the highly skewed distribution of productive assets. That’s where BBBEE policies come in handy. I was not surprised when the Democratic Alliance (DA) announced its intention to publish a ‘Notice of Intention to Introduce a Private Members Bill and Invitation for Comment’ in the Government Gazette. According to the opposition party, the bill seeks to amend the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA) and ultimately scrap the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act.
