Political and economic expert Dr Frans Cronje says the black economic empowerment experiment has failed and that it is time for South Africa to move on.
Cronje shared his views about South Africa’s economic policies during a discussion with Mike Sham on the State of the Nation podcast.
He said that, although South Africa is on a good economic trajectory, there are a handful of policies that are hampering growth.
“South Africa’s economy is growing at 1%. It should be growing at 5%. The reason it is not happening is because of government policies,” Cronje said.
The key policies preventing growth in South Africa are black economic empowerment (BEE) and the Expropriation Act.
The new Expropriation Act allows the state to take property without compensation or at a price below market value.
“This act has nothing to do with land reform and everything to do with putting politicians in a position to extract wealth from money committed to the country,” he said.
Commenting on BEE, Cronje said it is a tax on capital on arrival, as companies have to give away a portion of their business to invest in South Africa.
“If you want to enter the South African economy, you have to pay a steep fee because of the empowerment policies,” he said.
“The consequence is that many projects which would have been viable become unviable and investors go to other countries.”
He highlighted ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri’s comments, where she said companies can take their money elsewhere if they don’t like BEE.
She said that if investors don’t like South Africa’s policies, they can go elsewhere. “They can invest in India or somewhere else,” Bhengu-Motsiri said.
Changing perception around BEE
Cronje stated that there were significant changes in how people perceive black empowerment, and it was time to reconsider this policy.
He cited President Cyril Ramaphosa’s comments regarding BEE following the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) proposal to significantly alter B-BBEE policies.
Ramaphosa stated that Parliament is the correct and only venue for discussing amendments to the BEE legislation.
Cronje said this was an astonishing show of how far the country has moved, considering that black economic empowerment was a foundational policy of the ANC.
He added that it is now commonplace for people close to the ANC to concede that BEE policies are counterproductive to economic growth.
“Ten years ago, you could not even talk about it. However, it is now the case that people don’t view BEE favourably,” he said.
Cronje cited a poll, where 80% of South Africans said businesses that employ people and pay tax should not have to comply with further BEE requirements.
“If the ANC does not read the signs well enough, it will increasingly find itself in a position where the balance of public opinion overtakes it,” he said.
This creates a situation where the party’s leadership and ideology fail to align with what their voter base wants.
Cronje highlighted that investor confidence has halved over the last two decades, which illustrates the devastating effect of poor government policies.
The solution is to remove obstacles to investment, which include black empowerment requirements and the Expropriation Act.
This will encourage local companies to start investing, which, in turn, will spark more interest from their international counterparts to follow.
