The government will not abandon its transformation agenda in exchange for trade deals, vows trade, industry and competition (DTIC) deputy minister Zuko Godlimpi.
Godlimpi made the remarks at the annual competition law, economics, and policy conference in Cape Town on Tuesday as the country searches for economically viable trade deals.
SA is among countries that faces tariff hikes under US President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump imposed a 30% tariff last month on SA exports to the US after spending months bashing the country’s Expropriation Act, which sets out how organs of state may expropriate land in the public interest, and falsely accused SA of committing genocide against white people.
Godlimpi said when the country was criticised for its laws, some urged the government to abandon its transformation policies to save SA from the economic consequences of fallouts in trade deals.
“The problem is that people are trying to turn transformation into a swear word; it is not, and it will never be. It is one area of public policy that we are not going to concede on — it is not up for negotiation domestically … and internationally,” Godlimpi said.
“We have made this point clear, including to those who have said we must repeal some parts of our transformation legislation to secure trade deals. That is not going to happen.”
Godlimpi made comments as President Cyril Ramaphosa told parliament this week that SA officials would further negotiate trade deals with the US.
Godlimpi warned that abandoning transformation would lead to social upheaval.
“It is a fact of life. If SA’s income inequality persists in the racially articulated manner that it does, SA is going to burn. That is the only viable path that you are proposing, if you say transformation must be abandoned.”
He said “a few” people were uncomfortable with transformation and misrepresented it.
“It would be remiss of the political leadership of SA to bend the constitutional design of SA because someone across the Atlantic is waving a gun towards us. It is not going to happen.
“Transformation is not a swear word..it is a moral perspective that defines the very idea of what South Africanhood is about,” Godlimpi said.
“To be South African is to represent the moral proposition that it is possible to construct a new social order on the basis of the mutual recognition that social division, prejudice and structural discrimination can be overcome by designing an institutional order that imposes on all of us the imperative to transform society for the better.”
He implored the Competition Commission to create a fair regulatory environment that allows trade, investment, and enterprise development- while ensuring such development occurs in an equitable and socially responsible manner.
Watch full speech here:
The transformation debate has been central to SA’s democracy. Many viewed 1994 as a mark of political transformation but not economic redress for Africans, who were systemically impoverished by the apartheid system.
The ANC faces pushback from its biggest GNU partner, the DA, and lobby groups challenging in court some of the policies aimed at transformation.
This includes the legal battle against the expropriation act, the BBBEE legal sector code implemented to ensure black practitioners have strengthened ownership of the country’s law firms; National Health Insurance (NHI), which sets into motion the plan for universal health coverage; and the Employment Equity Amendment Act (EE).
The legal sector code, which is the biggest battle within the legal community against Godlimpi’s boss, minister Parks Tau, will be heard in a special motion court in the Pretoria high court in November.
Godlimpi said the debate should be about the efficacy of instruments used to implement transformation, not the principle of transformation in a country that suffers from inequality and poverty.
In 2020, Stats SA reported that earnings distribution depicted heavily racialised inequality in the SA labour market.
“The real earnings between 2011 and 2015 among employed black Africans were R6,899 per month. For coloureds and Indians/Asians, the figures are R9,339 and R14,235 per month. Among whites, it was R24,646 per month, more than three times as high as it was among black Africans,” the report read.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.