BEE hijacked by elite, poor sidelined

BLACK Economic Empowerment (BEE), as a measure of social engineering to address socio-economic inequities, is failing in its objectives.

Instead it has become an instrument of creating a new elitist class, political scientist Dr Henning Melber has warned. “In taking (intellectual) positions with regards to social justice, the political culture should not exclude the option of siding with the wretched of the earth,” a clearly upset Melber told some 60 people attending Unam’s ongoing series of public lectures sponsored by the National Institute for Democracy.Melber, the former head of Nepru and himself a member of the ruling party, appealed for honest intellectualism in discussing the issues confronting Namibian society and bringing about fundamental and lasting social change.The most important issue, according to him, is the true empowerment of the people – but that should be empowerment for the majority of the people and not just a small elite, he argued.”There can be no true de-colonisation (of Namibia) … while creating a new elite, not of the mind, not of the society,” he said, quoting iconic African social commentator Amil Cabral.While the negotiated political settlement that led to Namibia’s Independence – which in effect entrenched property rights and the economic status quo – even the limited options as spelled out by Affirmative Action clauses in the Constitution have not been taken advantage of to alleviate crushing poverty facing the majority of Namibians, he said.WABENZI ON RISE In the current debate about the merits of BEE, those who have benefited from it display all the signs of a new, rising class consciousness that had more in common with former white privilege than true social awareness.That said, it was “a disgrace” that the former privileged white class could continue amassing wealth without paying at least a tax penalty – income taxes for the richest Namibians should be much higher, he argued.Melber quoted extensively from a recent article written by Lazarus Jacobs in defence of BEE, which argued that BEE proponents like himself were simply taking advantage of loopholes that whites previously had exploited.Jacobs argued that when white businessmen did so, it was considered good business – but when blacks did the same, it was considered as somehow corrupt.Both positions advanced by Jacobs, Dr Melber argued, were simply wrong: What Jacobs was arguing for was the privatisation of public resources for private distribution amongst their own families in an opaque fashion.Instead, any redistribution of wealth should at its point of departure have the upliftment of especially Namibia’s rural poor who had no means other than State resources to improve their own lot in life.In this regard, he quoted from recent statements by Blade Nzimande, Secretary General of the South African Communist Party (SACP), who argued that BEE had done nothing to improve the lot of the poor.The African National Congress (ANC) appeared to be at least aware of this failure, which appeared to have prompted it to release a list of its members who have benefited most from BEE deals.One of these ANC members, Melber said, managed to amass a personal wealth of N$9 billion in the short space of time since 1994.”He must have been working very, very hard to make N$9 billion,” which was nearly equal to Namibia’s national budget, Melber remarked.ONGOPOLO He also launched stinging attacks on the collapse of Ongopolo Mining and Processing where, a recent article showed, there had been no training done in spite of its BEE component.The most unsettling thing was, he said quoting from an interview with the new CEO Rod Webster, that the new owners seemed to know more about the mine than Ongopolo’s previous management, which included the mineworkers’ union (MUN).The same applied to the ongoing Ramatex saga, where the Malaysian owners now, as a condition for continuing to operate in Namibia, wanted to bring in their own foreign, skilled workers while doing nothing to effect skills transfers to the Namibian workforce.In an oblique attack on the reasons why the “empowerment component” of Ongopolo failed to protect Namibian interests, he also referred to Webster’s statement that certain essential mining functions were outsourced “for some crazy reason” – an aspect that just begged for some good investigative reporting, Melber suggested.Sixteen years after Independence, he said, there has been no meaningful distribution of wealth: the wealthiest 1,5 per cent of the population still controlled 78 per cent of all Namibia’s wealth, while a fifth of the population had to make do with just 1,4 per cent.At the same time, unemployment was rising – a warning echoed in a later discussion by Professor Andre du Pisani, who pointed to the rising demographic threat of increasing numbers of young, male jobseekers flocking to cities looking for work that did not exist.Quoting academic literature in this regard, Melber warned that concentrating all political and economic power in the hands of a narrow elite was the greatest cause of poverty.To keep on blaming apartheid policies, 16 years later, was “embarrassing and misleading”, he said.The true road for empowerment, he said quoting The Namibian’s Editor Gwen Lister, was to empower the presently disadvantaged, not the previously disadvantaged.BEE had become a tool for class formation instead addressing socio-economic inequity.He therefore agreed with the Labour Resources and Research Institute (LaRRI) that Namibia needed a patriotic bourgeoisie that would invest productively rather than spend their easily obtained wealth on conspicuous consumption.* John Grobler is a freelance journalist; 081 240 1587″In taking (intellectual) positions with regards to social justice, the political culture should not exclude the option of siding with the wretched of the earth,” a clearly upset Melber told some 60 people attending Unam’s ongoing series of public lectures sponsored by the National Institute for Democracy.Melber, the former head of Nepru and himself a member of the ruling party, appealed for honest intellectualism in discussing the issues confronting Namibian society and bringing about fundamental and lasting social change.The most important issue, according to him, is the true empowerment of the people – but that should be empowerment for the majority of the people and not just a small elite, he argued.”There can be no true de-colonisation (of Namibia) … while creating a new elite, not of the mind, not of the society,” he said, quoting iconic African social commentator Amil Cabral.While the negotiated political settlement that led to Namibia’s Independence – which in effect entrenched property rights and the economic status quo – even the limited options as spelled out by Affirmative Action clauses in the Constitution have not been taken advantage of to alleviate crushing poverty facing the majority of Namibians, he said.WABENZI ON RISE In the current debate about the merits of BEE, those who have benefited from it display all the signs of a new, rising class consciousness that had more in common with former white privilege than true social awareness.That said, it was “a disgrace” that the former privileged white class could continue amassing wealth without paying at least a tax penalty – income taxes for the richest Namibians should be much higher, he argued.Melber quoted extensively from a recent article written by Lazarus Jacobs in defence of BEE, which argued that BEE proponents like himself were simply taking advantage of loopholes that whites previously had exploited.Jacobs argued that when white businessmen did so, it was considered good business – but when blacks did the same, it was considered as somehow corrupt.Both positions advanced by Jacobs, Dr Melber argued, were simply wrong: What Jacobs was arguing for was the privatisation of public resources for private distribution amongst their own families in an opaque fashion.Instead, any redistribution of wealth should at its point of departure have the upliftment of especially Namibia’s rural poor who had no means other than State resources to improve their own lot in life.In this regard, he quoted from recent statements by Blade Nzimande, Secretary General of the South African Communist Party (SACP), who argued that BEE had done nothing to improve the lot of the poor.The African National Congress (ANC) appeared to be at least aware of this failure, which appeared to have prompted it to release a list of its members who have benefited most from BEE deals.One of these ANC members, Melber said, managed to amass a personal wealth of N$9 billion in the short space of time since 1994.”He must have been working very, very hard to make N$9 billion,” which was nearly equal to Namibia’s national budget, Melber remarked.ONGOPOLO He also launched stinging attacks on the collapse of Ongopolo Mining and Processing where, a recent article showed, there had been no training done in spite of its BEE component.The most unsettling thing was, he said quoting from an interview with the new CEO Rod Webster, that the new owners seemed to know more about the mine than Ongopolo’s previous management, which included the mineworkers’ union (MUN).The same applied to the ongoing Ramatex saga, where the Malaysian owners now, as a condition for continuing to operate in Namibia, wanted to bring in their own foreign, skilled workers while doing nothing to effect skills transfers to the Namibian workforce.In an oblique attack on the reasons why the “empowerment component” of Ongopolo failed to protect Namibian interests, he also referred to Webster’s statement that certain essential mining functions were outsourced “for some crazy reason” – an aspect that just begged for some good investigative reporting, Melber suggested.Sixteen years after Independence, he said, there has been no meaningful distribution of wealth: the wealthiest 1,5 per cent of the population still controlled 78 per cent of all Namibia’s wealth, while a fifth of the population had to make do with just 1,4 per cent.At the same time, unemployment was rising – a warning echoed in a later discussion by Professor Andre du Pisani, who pointed to the rising demographic threat of increasing numbers of young, male jobseekers flocking to cities looking for work that did not exist.Quoting academic literature in this regard, Melber warned that concentrating all political and economic power in the hands of a narrow elite was the greatest cause of poverty.To keep on blaming apartheid policies, 16 years later, was “embarrassing and misleading”, he said.The true road for empowerment, he said quoting The Namibian’s Editor Gwen Lister, was to empower the presently disadvantaged, not the previously disadvantaged.BEE had become a tool for class formation instead addressing socio-economic inequity.He therefore agreed with the Labour Resources and Research Institute (LaRRI) that Namibia needed a patriotic bourgeoisie that would invest productively rather than spend their easily obtained wealth on conspicuous consumption. * John Grobler is a freelance journalist; 081 240 1587