The State's commitment to BEE is in doubt
Sandile Mdadane is the Editor of the Sunday Tribune
Image: File
The proposed policy direction by the Minister of Communications and Digital Technology to relax the broad-based black economic empowerment (BBEE) terms to enable billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink to enter the South African market without fully complying with the law is not only a travesty of justice but also sets a bad precedent.
The move undermines the transformation agenda of BBBEE, which aims to address the historical inequities. The government gazette proposal follows hot on the heels of an Oval Office meeting between US President Donald Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa, where the latter continued to push his baseless white genocide claim.
Musk, who was born in South Africa, has repeated the false claim that his Starlink has been blocked from operating locally because he is white, omitting the fact that it has to be BEE compliant.
It is particularly sad that on Africa Day, celebrated on May 25, the South African government's commitment to redress policies is in doubt as it bends over backwards to feed the impulses of the richest man in the world. A businessman who's made it his mission to spread lies about a country of his birth.
Despite all the evidence that has been presented, Musk has continued with the lie that white South Africans are being targeted for mass murder and their land and property are being taken away from them.
Yet the South African government has chosen to bend the rules for Starlink. In the Oval Office meeting, the richest man in South Africa, Johann Rupert, who was part of Ramaphosa's delegation, openly bid for Starlink.
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Recently, Musk's chatbot Grok malfunctioned and exposed how it's being manipulated to spread false narratives. This shows how dangerous Musk is to South Africa's national security and social cohesion if his Starlink is allowed to operate locally without any scrutiny and full compliance.
The speed with which the government showed in wanting to relax the rules for Starlink is at sharp odds with how it treats many small black businesses, some who've gone belly up because their invoices remain unpaid.
Sandile Mdadane is the Editor of the Sunday Tribune. The views expressed are his own.
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