Sanctions or not, we won't back down: ANC defiant on BBBEE amid US pressure
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula has criticised the Democratic Alliance (DA) for campaigning against South Africa's transformation policies abroad, saying this has contributed to punitive US tariffs and threats of sanctions against ANC leaders.
South Africa faces a potential 30% tariff on exports to the US.
He warned the ANC would not abandon its transformation agenda, including Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE), despite pressure from Washington and its political allies.
Addressing the media in the post-NEC briefing on Wednesday, Mbalula said the ANC is not prepared to abandon its economic transformation policies to appease the United States.
'You must understand that the tariffs imposed by the United States of America are going to negatively affect our economy,' he said.
Mbalula accused the DA of lobbying during US visits to have policies like BBBEE scrapped, which he said aligns with longstanding imperialist attitudes.
'You can't, for national interest, say undo BEE to appease the United States of America because, among others, this is what the US wants of us, that we must do away with certain policies which, for us in terms of transformation, are not going to assist us,' Mbalula said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Eyewitness News
3 hours ago
- Eyewitness News
Mbalula greenlights Ekurhuleni ANC's 8th regional conference despite some members' legal pushback
JOHANNESBURG - As a group of African National Congress (ANC) members approach the courts in a bid to stop its 8th regional conference, the party's secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, has given it the green light to go ahead. Mbalula told journalists during a media briefing that the regional conference would go ahead this weekend or next week. ALSO READ: - Mbalula: ANC won't abandon BEE, Expropriation Act even if party leaders sanctioned by US govt - ANC resolves to reconfigure its WC leadership - ANC urges govt to stand firm on SA's transformation policies as US tariffs loom He said the party would meet those wanting to halt the event in court. Six party members are asking for the conference to be interdicted, arguing that the regional task team (RTT) has no constitutional standing, thus it cannot convene a conference. In an application that spans 166 pages, ANC members argue for the much-anticipated Ekurhuleni conference not to go ahead. The last time the region elected a chairperson, violence broke out, the matter landed in the courts, and its outcomes were overturned. In the latest papers, the party members want the decisions taken by the RTT from 10 June to be declared invalid and unconstitutional. They argue it had no right to convene branch general meetings, audits, and to prepare for the eighth conference. Mbalula said the ANC was not worried about the pending litigation. "They are ready for conference; why do you stop it? We've seen letters flying around, questioning the standing of the RTT and all of that. From where we are seated, the RTT is ready to convene a conference." Forty-eight other regions out of the ANC's 52 are expected to elect new leaders by December.
IOL News
3 hours ago
- IOL News
Land Reform: A Call to Action for the National Dialogue
A citizen gestures as she makes submissions before a land expropriation hearing in Cape Town, on August 4, 2018. Teams from Parliament's Joint Constitutional Review Committee held hearings throughout South Africa to hear views on the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution, which would allow the government to expropriate land without compensation. Image: AFP Zamikhaya Maseti As we mark the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, the soul of South Africa's struggle document must be returned to centre stage, especially its most uncompromising and emotive clause, "The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It." Born out of the searing injustice of the 1913 Land Act, this clause was not poetic idealism; it was a war cry, a confrontation with a colonial and apartheid order that uprooted, dispossessed, and dismantled the African peasantry and agrarian enterprise. The 1913 Natives Land Act was the legal scalpel that excised millions of Africans from their ancestral land, amputating them from their economic base and cultural lifeblood. It barred Africans from owning land in over 87% of South Africa and confined them to impoverished reserves, setting in motion a cycle of economic dependency, landlessness, and systemic poverty. This legislative monstrosity didn't merely displace Africans; it decimated the foundations of independent African agriculture, fragmenting black self-sufficiency and creating a vast, disenfranchised class of landless labourers. The demand for land was, therefore, not an abstract constitutional matter; it was the nerve centre of the liberation struggle. From the days of the ANC's founding in 1912 through to the Defiance Campaign, the armed struggle, and the dawn of democracy in 1994, the land question animated every revolutionary syllable. Yet, three decades after democracy, we are compelled to ask, has this revolutionary demand been met with revolutionary action? The democratic state attempted a course correction through policy, most notably the 1997 White Paper on South African Land Policy, which articulated three pillars: land redistribution, tenure reform, and land restitution. The policy framework acknowledged that land reform was a moral, social, and economic imperative, seeking to reverse apartheid's legacy, reduce rural poverty, and broaden access to land for black South Africans. There must be an honest and sober appreciation of the effort and intentions embodied in this White Paper. It laid a progressive foundation. However, 28 years into democracy, its delivery has been stunted, bureaucratised, and chronically underfunded. Redistribution has been slow and haphazard. Tenure reform has lacked political teeth. Restitution processes have been mired in delays and legal technicalities. Most damningly, the very beneficiaries of the land reform project have, in large part, been set up to fail. Out of the 8 million hectares of land transferred to black beneficiaries, only 10% is being optimally used. This statistic is not only shocking, but it is a direct indictment of post-transfer support systems, or lack thereof. Black farmers, many of them first-generation, are starved of working capital, extension services, access to markets, and irrigation infrastructure. They are given land but not the tools to work it, nor the scaffolding to sustain it. In effect, this model has birthed a new underclass of landholders who remain economically marginal and agriculturally voiceless. This failure is reflected in their marginal contribution to national food security. Black farmers contribute less than 10% to South Africa's agricultural GDP. 85% of agricultural land remains in the hands of white commercial farmers, many of whom are ageing. Yet, it is these farmers, not the supposed 'beneficiaries' of the land reform programme, who feed the nation. This reality was starkly captured by Moeletsi Mbeki, who boldly declared that 'white farmers feed South Africa,' and warned that the current land reform trajectory is unsustainable and economically suicidal. His assessment, though uncomfortable, is factually grounded and brutally honest. A demonstrator holds a placard reading "yes to land expropriation without compensation" as thousands of workers take part in a national strike called by the South African Federation of Trade Unions SAFTU on April 25, 2018 in Johannesburg. Image: AFP The 2017 Land Audit corroborated this truth, despite government promises, by 2013, the state had failed to redistribute even the 13% of agricultural land it had committed to transferring to black hands. This is not just a policy failure, it is a betrayal of the promise encoded in the Freedom Charter and a squandering of the historical responsibility that democracy entrusted to the post-apartheid state. Worse still, this policy inertia opens up space for distortion. The recent phenomenon of 49 white farmers falsely claiming farm killings, amplified by none other than Elon Musk, reflects how unresolved land reform narratives can be hijacked for global disinformation campaigns. In this context, we must separate fiction from fact. South Africa's land reform has been too lethargic, not too radical. That is why the upcoming National Dialogue must tear through the platitudes and confront the land question as the unfinished business of our liberation. It must be brutally honest about what kind of land reform South Africa needs in 2025 and beyond. It must wrestle with the diverse and competing demands for land, land for residential purposes in urban and peri-urban areas, land for agricultural production to rebuild the black agrarian class, and land for agri-industrial expansion, to allow black entrepreneurs to enter the high-value food processing and export economy. If we are to achieve agricultural justice, we must understand that 'those who work the land' are not a rhetorical category. They are aspiring farmers, agricultural engineers, landless labourers, and black youth with no rural inheritance. The system has yet to make room for them. They must be incubated, funded, trained, and connected to markets. South Africa cannot afford to allow 80% of redistributed farms to lie fallow while its people go hungry and its black farmers remain spectators. The National Dialogue must resist becoming another elite talk shop. It must become a site of truth-telling, accountability, and bold policy rupture. The time has come to turn the war cry of 'The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It' into a national economic strategy, one that liberates land not only as a space, but as a productive force that re-energises food security, rural economies, and black dignity. Land is not just a historical grievance. It is the foundation of South Africa's future. If the National Dialogue fails to grasp this, then it will not only fail the Freedom Charter, but it will also fail the nation itself. * Zamikhaya Maseti is a Political Economy Analyst. ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
The South African
3 hours ago
- The South African
Cyril Ramaphosa fails in last-ditch effort to avoid Donald Trump's tariffs
Diplomatic tensions between South Africa and the United States escalated this week as the administration of US President Donald Trump imposed a 30% tariff on goods imported from South Africa – the highest duties placed on any sub-Saharan African nation. The tariffs, which came into effect on Friday, 8 August, threaten to undermine critical sectors of South Africa's economy, with the auto and agricultural industries expected to bear the brunt of the impact. South Africa's Department of Trade has warned that the move could put as many as 30 000 jobs at risk, exacerbating the country's already severe unemployment crisis. A day before the tariffs took effect, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and President Donald Trump held a phone conversation in a last-minute effort to address the dispute. According to a statement from the South African Presidency, the two leaders committed to 'further engagements', with respective trade negotiating teams set to continue detailed discussions in the weeks ahead. However, no immediate resolution was reached. 'The two leaders undertook to continue with further engagements, recognising the various trade negotiations the US is currently involved in,' the statement read. At the centre of the tensions are US demands that South Africa abandon certain post-apartheid economic laws aimed at redressing racial inequality. These demands have drawn a strong rebuke from the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's ruling party. 'They want us to do away with certain policies. It is not going to be possible,' said Fikile Mbalula, the ANC's secretary-general, during a press briefing in Johannesburg. 'If it means we are going to suffer through sanctions as leaders of the ANC, let it be. We will never back imperialists to subvert our democracy, to subvert our sovereignty.' The ANC, which lost its outright parliamentary majority in 2024 for the first time in 30 years, is now governing in coalition with nine other parties. Despite this shift in political dynamics, the party remains firm in its stance against foreign pressure to alter its transformative economic policies. Relations between Pretoria and Washington have deteriorated sharply since Donald Trump's return to office in January 2025. The Trump administration has reignited claims of 'white farmer genocide' in South Africa – a discredited narrative – and criticised the country's foreign policy alignments, particularly its participation in BRICS and its growing ties with nations like China and Russia. Analysts warn that the new tariffs could further strain bilateral relations and have long-term consequences for South Africa's access to global markets. South Africa relies heavily on the US as a key export market, particularly for automobiles, wine, citrus, and other agricultural products. The 30% tariff will drastically reduce the competitiveness of South African goods in the US market, with small-scale farmers and manufacturers likely to suffer the most. Industry bodies have called on the government to seek urgent diplomatic or legal remedies, potentially through the World Trade Organisation (WTO), while continuing to engage with US trade officials. With trade teams set to resume negotiations, and the political rhetoric intensifying on both sides, the coming weeks will be critical in determining whether relations between the two nations can be stabilised – or spiral further into economic and diplomatic conflict. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
