The ANC's ideological dogmatism was on full display in employment & labour minister Thulas Nxesi's laboured defence of the Employment Equity Amendment BillTwenty years of race-based policy, of precisely the type the bill aims to amplify, have left the SA economy in tatters. Unemployment is at record highs, as are the national debt and the deficit, which rival figures last seen in the dark days of PW Botha.
And yet there is no willingness to introspect or to consider alternatives. The labour minister and his cabinet colleagues are parroting the same tired refrains of why race-based policy is non-negotiable given the country’s apartheid legacy. The Institute of Race Relations champions an approach that does just that, in line with the institute's central objectives of promoting freedom and prosperity, as it has done since 1929. The IRR's proposal is called economic empowerment for the disadvantaged . It turns the current approach on its head in two respects.