Opening remarks by the Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the B-BBEE symposium
Programme Director,
Leadership of the University of Johannesburg and Johannesburg Business School,
Representatives of the B-BBEE Commission,
Distinguished panellists, scholars, business leaders, organised labour, civil society representatives, development finance institutions,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good morning.
It is both an honour and a privilege to deliver the opening remarks at this important Symposium on Black Economic Empowerment and Its Discontents: The Past, the Present and the Future.
We gather here at a watershed moment in our democratic journey and geopolitical moment. Thirty years into freedom, South Africa remains politically liberated, yet economically unequal in ways that still reflect the architecture of apartheid dispossession. The vote was won in 1994, constitutional democracy was secured, and formal citizenship was restored to all our people. Yet ownership, control of capital, access to productive assets, and meaningful participation in the economy remain too concentrated, too exclusionary, and too slow to change.
That is why this symposium matters.
This gathering should not be a platform for sloganeering, nor should it be a ritual in defence of existing arrangements. It should be an exercise for review of our journey to institutionalise the meaning of a democratic state – a state responsive to our shared history of dispossession and expectations of our people. It should create a space or spaces for rigorous engagement on the constitutional foundations of redress, the measurable outcomes of implementation, the challenge of elite capture, the role of development finance institutions, and the reforms required to place Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) on a more effective and inclusive trajectory.
We begin today with one central truth:
While we note challenges South Africa faces today, we are encouraged h President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa when he says “Now is not the time to abandon B-BBEE. Now is the time to make it more effective”.
B-BBEE cannot be abandoned. It must be improved, deepened, disciplined and accelerated. B-BBEE is a Constitutional Imperative, it is Not a Policy preference.
Let us be clear from the outset, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment is not an optional policy experiment. It is rooted in the constitutional commitment to equality, dignity, justice and substantive redress.
Our Constitution does not merely prohibit future discrimination. It recognises the need to remedy the consequences of centuries of colonial conquest and apartheid exclusion. It accepts that formal equality, in a society built on structural dispossession, would simply reproduce inherited injustice.
That is the reason Section 9 of the Constitution permits and indeed requires legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance social transformation of persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination.
In practical terms, South Africa cannot claim constitutional fidelity while tolerating economic patterns still shaped by racial, gender and spatial exclusion. To oppose all remedial measures is to misunderstand the democratic settlement itself.
The question before us has never been whether transformation should happen. The real question is whether we have been bold enough, effective enough, and honest enough in how we implement it.
We must confront the slow pace of change
There is a body of evidence that shows that progress has been made in the implementation of B-BBEE. There has been increased black participation in management, enterprise development, supplier inclusion, and ownership structures across several sectors. Income gains among black households since democracy are real, and poverty levels have declined relative to earlier periods, even if not at the pace expected by the majority of our people.
There is credible empirical evidence that demonstrates transformation policies, including B-BBEE, have had measurable effects, for an example Black African household income grew by 46% between 2006 and 2023. Poverty among Black South Africans declined from 67% to 44% over the same period. A significant increase in black participation in management and ownership structures has also shown improvement.
But progress cannot be confused with justice.
However, despite this progress, the economic situation of the majority of the people remains deeply concerning. According to the World Bank, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Unemployment among the black youth aged 15-24 is the highest, estimated at 58.5%.
Wealth remains deeply concentrated, and the commanding heights of finance, mining, commercial agriculture, construction value chains, logistics and advanced manufacturing remain disproportionately controlled by historical incumbents or narrow circles of capital.
Black unemployment remains significantly higher than white unemployment. Youth unemployment remains a national emergency. Women, particularly black women in rural areas, townships and informal economies, continue to face layered barriers to participation. This means our current pace of transformation is inadequate. History will not judge us by the policies we announced. It will judge us by the structural outcomes we achieved.
We must reject misleading narratives about B-BBEE
We must also confront several misleading narratives that dominate public discourse.
The first false narrative:
That we must choose between growth and transformation. This is false. No society can sustain growth where the majority are excluded from ownership, opportunity, skills and wealth creation. Exclusion weakens demand, narrows the talent base, fuels instability and undermines social cohesion.
Transformation is not the enemy of growth. Transformation is the unfinished foundation of sustainable growth.
The second false narrative:
That because implementation has flaws, the principle itself must be discarded.
This too is false. Where there is fronting, we must prosecute fronting. Where there is rent-seeking, we must stop rent-seeking. Where compliance is superficial, we must enforce substance. Where benefits are too narrow, we must broaden participation. Implementation failure can never become an excuse for the miscarriage or abandoning justice.
The third false narrative:
That B-BBEE only benefited a small group of politically connected individuals.
This is an incomplete and often desperate distortion of reality. Yes, there have been instances where benefits were concentrated and where transactional empowerment failed the broad-based objective. We must acknowledge that honestly.
But it is equally true that many of the most prominent black South Africans who rose in business, industry, finance, media, technology and professional services through empowerment opportunities have had no relationship whatsoever with the African National Congress (ANC) as a governing party.
Many beneficiaries emerged through entrepreneurship, professional excellence, market competitiveness, strategic partnerships and access previously denied to black people under apartheid. Their success is not evidence of policy failure—it is evidence that barriers can be broken.
We should not be ashamed of black success and excellence. We should multiply it. The task is not to deny those gains. The task is to broaden them far beyond current levels.
We must be honest about resistance
We must also speak frankly about resistance.
There are forces—domestic and international—that seek to portray all transformation as unfairness, all redress as discrimination, and all empowerment as inefficiency.
Some of this opposition is ideological seeks to reproduce and maintain colonial privileges. Some of it is economic self-interest. Some of it is rooted in nostalgia for inherited privilege.
There is also a more subtle resistance: delay, procedural obstruction, minimal compliance, legalistic evasion, endless litigation, and calls for patience while inequality deepens. South Africa cannot afford politically insensitive postures that seek to stall or reverse transformation.
We are not a small island detached from our continent. We are Africa’s most industrialised economy. We carry continental expectations.
We cannot become an enclave of historic privilege in a continent yearning for models of black excellence, inclusive industrialisation and shared prosperity. The success of transformation in South Africa matters beyond our borders.
Sectoral transformation must become measurable and consequential
One of the reasons for convening this symposium is that transformation must move from general aspiration to sector-specific execution.
Different sectors have different histories, market structures and barriers to entry. A uniform approach will not succeed. Examples of this are the following:
Programme Director
In construction
Construction is labour-intensive, infrastructure-linked, and central to economic recovery. It can absorb workers at scale while building the roads, schools, clinics, ports and housing that sustain long-term growth.
Yet many black-owned firms remain trapped in subcontracting tiers, undercapitalised, and excluded from major projects. This prevents the emergence of sustainable black prime contractors able to compete nationally and regionally.
Training in this sector must include project management, estimating, safety systems, compliance and digital tools. Sustainable transformation requires empowered firms that are technically excellent.
We must use state procurement pipelines to build black construction champions. Predictable pipelines allow investment in equipment, staffing and systems. Once-off contracts do not build lasting enterprises. And so, we must raise questions about the notions that seek to trap our people in cooperatives as a substitute for direct individual economic affirmation.
In agriculture
Land access alone is insufficient without water rights, finance, logistics, extension support, market access and Agro-processing integration. Productive agriculture depends on a complete ecosystem.
Without these complementary measures, new entrants remain asset holders without viable enterprises. Transformation in agriculture must therefore focus on commercial sustainability and value-chain inclusion.
In mining
Mining remains foundational to exports and industrial capacity, yet mining communities often remain poor while value is extracted beneath their very feet. This contradiction undermines legitimacy and fuels social tension.
Transformation in mining must therefore go beyond ownership percentages and extend to beneficiation, procurement, skills transfer and community development.
In finance
Without access to finance, transformation in every other sector stalls. Credit, equity and risk capital determine who can start, survive and scale an enterprise. The financial sector therefore carries a special national responsibility. We must increase developmental lending to productive black enterprises. More capital must flow into sectors that create jobs, exports and industrial capacity.
Development finance institutions must be repositioned
Today’s panel on DFIs is therefore especially important. Institutions such as the IDC, NEF, DBSA, Land Bank, SEFA and related agencies were created to correct market failures and catalyse development. They must be judged not only by repayment ratios or narrow approval metrics, but by developmental additionality.
Today and at this juncture we must ask the most difficult and uncomfortable questions.
How many sustainable black enterprises have been nurtured and built?
Does competitiveness and growth matter more than approvals alone?
How many industrial capabilities were created?
How many jobs were generated leveraging B-BBEE?
How many firms graduated into mainstream markets during this period of economic reform?
How many women and youth enterprises scaled successfully?
How many townships and rural enterprises entered formal value chains?
We need an independent review of DFI transformation performance, approval systems, technical assistance, post-investment support and recovery mechanisms.
Programme Director,
Government must use the state as strategic leverage
The democratic state has assets, procurement power, infrastructure, land, licences, data, institutions and balance-sheet influence. These are not passive instruments. They are strategic levers. Government must deliberately use, among others:
- Public procurement to stimulate enterprise growth, localisation and inclusion.
- SOE supplier chains to build black industrial capacity at scale.
- Industrial parks to reduce entry barriers and support manufacturing clusters.
- Ports and logistics nodes to open export pathways for emerging firms.
- Broadband infrastructure to support digital inclusion and innovation.
- Public land for productive housing, agriculture and industrial use.
- Skills institutions to prepare citizens for jobs, entrepreneurship and ownership.
- Municipal contracts to grow local enterprise ecosystems.
- Energy transition investments to ensure new green opportunities are broadly shared.
- Infrastructure concessions to deepen inclusion rather than reproduce concentration.
Where the state spends, transformation must be visible!
Where the state licenses, transformation must be enforceable!
Where the state owns assets, transformation must be catalytic!
Monitoring must move from compliance to outcomes
As the Ministry responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, we are particularly seized with one issue - South Africa has many frameworks. We now need measurable outcomes.
We must track not only certificates and scorecards, but indicators such as:
- Ownership by value and control
- Supplier spend reaching black SMEs
- Growth and survival rates of funded firms
- Access to export markets
- Black representation in executive decision-making
- Productivity gains from transformed firms
- Regional spread of opportunities
- Women and youth participation
- Job creation linked to transformation initiatives
- Reduction in sectoral concentration
Every sector charter must have time-bound targets, transparent reporting, and consequences for persistent underperformance.
What gets measured gets managed!
What gets hidden gets delayed!
What gets delayed becomes denied!
The purpose of this symposium
We end by returning to the purpose of this symposium - today’s symposium is therefore timely and necessary.
We must be reminded that B-B BEE is rooted in a historically necessary and constitutionally grounded project of redress of the historical injustice of economic exclusion of the majority of South African.
We do not gather because we agree on everything [This is very important]. We gather because South Africa needs critical minds to engage difficult questions honestly and constructively. The generation of 1994 handed us freedom. Our generation must deliver economic emancipation
In conclusion, Compatriots,
The African National Congress, the party leading this multi-party government, championed the struggle for political freedom because our people refused to accept eternal subordination. That same moral logic compels economic transformation. Political liberation without economic inclusion is incomplete. Democracy without shared prosperity is fragile. We must always be mindful of this fragility. Growth without justice is unsustainable.
Let this symposium be remembered not merely as another talk shop, but as part of a renewed national effort to align growth with justice, efficiency with inclusion, and investment with dignity.
As government we fully agree that BBBEE alone is not the panacea to all our problems. For it to fulfil its objective, it must be integrated with industrial policy, infrastructure investment, skills development, and decisive support for small enterprises.
The future of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment will not be determined by its critics alone. It will be determined by the courage, discipline and resolve of those prepared to make it work for the many, and not the few.
Let us engage openly. Let us debate honestly. Let us reform boldly. Let us act urgently.
We thank you
Baie Dankie
Re a leboga
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