Equity quotas Verwoerdian says Zille

Helen Zille says the DA will never support racial quotas in employment. Image: DA

Zille told the Cape Town Press Club this was why the Democratic Alliance needed to reject the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Bill and the Employment Equity Amendment Bill.

"Ultimately, the revised legislative regime would impose rigid-racial based quotas," she said.

"There was absolutely no excuse for the DA supporting Verwoerdian measures like that," she added.

Zille was trying to clear up the Democratic Alliance's public policy spat on economic equality legislation, which she has termed a "plane crash" and which has pitted her against the party's parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko and caucus.

She steered the DA into a legislative U-turn after it voted in favour of the bills in the National Assembly and told Sapa of Mazibuko's support for the measures.

"She got it completely wrong," said Zille.

Create jobs not billionaires

Last week Zille set out a highly nuanced position on affirmative action, saying the party, in the words of one of its billboard slogans, "supports BEE that creates jobs, not billionaires".

Zille said this is why the party initially voted in favour of the BBBEE bill. She said it created incentives for employing previously disadvantaged individuals, but did not resort to coercive measures that would scare off investors.

The DA changed its stance and voted against it in the National Council of Provinces because, she said, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies reneged on assurances on the code of good practice be attached to the bill.

One of the most objectionable provisions in the code, in her opinion, was the threshold for determining the extent to which a beneficiary could profit from share transfers.

"Instead of dropping this to R10m, as Davies had promised DA MPs, it was raised to R50m, making it a recipe for entrenching race-based crony enrichment," she added.

On the equity bill, Zille said, the DA's true position was always abundantly clear, despite how MPs voted, adding that the DA would not support any law that sought to impose race quotas through draconian penalties imposed by unelected officials.

Asked whether the internal fallout had made her rethink vague plans to step down as party leader in 2015 and possibly hand the reins to Mazibuko, she answered: "As soon as somebody else can do this job better than me, I will leave and I will do something else for the cause."

Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge