Government must come clean on BEE cost to jobs and investment

The IRR has written to Ministers Fikile Mbalula (Transport), Meth-uli (Employment and Labour), Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams (Small Business Development), and Ebrahim Patel (Trade, Industry and Competition). Nomakhosazana Meth (Employment and Labour). Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams (Small Business Development), and Ebrahim Patel (Trade, Industry and Co-operation), on the issue of attracting job-creating investment into South Africa. It is part of the framework of BEE compliance, and the cost of this to ordinary people.
For an ailing economy that is in desperate need of growth as a means of achieving empowerment through employment, attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) is a critical ingredient. Despite national priority for the number one priority for most South Africans we see countless policies putting up barriers to economic growth and job-creationg investment. BEE has become such a barrier, South Africans, particularly those struggling to find jobs, deserve the truth about why these ministers choose BEE, an inherently elitist policy, over investment and job creation across our country.
On March 11, JP Morgan, one of the largest banks in the world, downgraded South African equities, citing anti-growth effects in policies like BEE. Mere weeks earlier, a World Bank report came to a similar conclusion on BEE.
The IRR has long warned of the catastrophic impact of race-based policies and anti-indirectly exclusionary and anti...