Ramaphosa: Racial redress is not stunting growth

Mail & Guardian

27-05-2025

President Cyril Ramaphosa.(@PresidencyZA/X)
Racial redress is not a hindrance to
Ramaphosa told Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder he failed to understand how those who questioned affirmative action could not see the real problem is black people do not own a big enough share of the means of economic production in the country.
'I am rather surprised and taken aback when I hear that policies of black economic empowerment militate against the growth of our economy. That, I find quite surprising because I work from the starting point that our economy was held back over many years by the racist policies of the past,' he said.
Apartheid prevented the majority of South Africans from playing a meaningful role in the economy, he continued.
'Black people were brought in as hewers and wood and drawers of water and they were just brought in as labourers. They were not even seen as consumers. They were not seen as active players in the economic landscape of our country.'
Mulder had suggested that the government should rewrite economic policy to create growth, and in that process abandon affirmative action and the concept of expropriation without compensation because it was not serving the country.
Ramaphosa countered that the reality of apartheid, including the wholesale exclusion of black South Africans from the economy, could not be forgotten as if it were merely 'a bad dream'.
'You would never see a black person being made to advertise either soap or milk or anything. Today every advert you look at has got black people because it is now being realised that it is black people who are the consumers.'
But, he added, there must be a realisation that black South Africans must moreover command the levers of the economy to reduce inequality and poverty.
'So I am really baffled, I am baffled by people who still hanker for policies of the past and to have you, Sir, say black economic empowerment is holding our economy back,' he said.
'It is the partial and exclusive ownership of the means of production in our country that is holding this economy from growing.
'Why can't black people be made to own productive aspects of our economy, why can't they be rich as well?'
The national debate about affirmative action has been revived by the
The Democratic Alliance's court challenges to the
In Tuesday's question session, MPs from the Patriotic Alliance (PA), uMkhonto weSiswe party and African Christian Democratic Party challenged the president about the racial classification in South Africa 30 years after the end of apartheid.
The PA's Marlon Daniels demanded to know why coloured, Indian, Khoisan and white South Africans were not deemed African.
Ramaphosa said it was regrettable that racial classification endured, but that the very aim of redress was creating a society where it no longer had any place.
'It is most unfortunate that the classifications that we have inherited from apartheid have tended to continue and our clear intent that we should see those classifications of our people withering away because we are all Africans, we are all South Africans.
'To rid ourselves of that form of classification we do need to take steps to say this group, and that group and that group were previously disadvantaged and we therefore have to take steps to ensure they are put in a better position.'
It did not imply discrimination, he said.
'There should never be a sense that there is any group that is more special than any other, we are all equal. As we move forward, our objective is to consolidate the unity of our people as one people, as Africans.'
He said those who argued against affirmative action were trying to put a plaster on the deep wound inflicted by apartheid.
'That sore does need to be lanced, it needs to be properly repaired and to repair it you need to go to the depth of it … you've got to name everything for what it is because unless you do so, you will never be able to rid our country of the legacy of the past.'