Scrap Employment Equity

Multi-racialism and multiculturalism aren’t about regulating our differences and privileges. It’s about embracing our similarities and letting the law be blind to the colour of our skin.

Source: Generated with ChatGPT

Businesses employing more than 50 employees will now be required to report to the government on the demographics of their staff, ensuring that they achieve a quota of ‘designated employees’ – notably African, Coloured, Indian, female and disabled workers.

The penalties for non-compliance - with what amounts to race quotas - range from R1.5 million or 2% of turnover, as well as being barred from getting state contracts.

This law is a part of the Employment Equity Amendment Act of 2022 (EEAA), which was implemented on 1 January 2025.

Already, the law is being rightly challenged by Sakeliga and the National Employer Association of South Africa (NEASA). But legal challenges to the bill have been dismissed by the High Court . The Democratic Alliance (DA) is also challenging the law’s constitutionality and legislative procedure. If the DA is successful, the law may not only be halted but need to go through the entire legislative process again. But this process began in May and hasn’t faltered the EEAA yet.

Failing multi-racialism

The EEAA is just another attack on South Africa’s attempts to become a truly multicultural, fair and democratic country. While disguised as redress and a law to protect workers from discrimination, the EEAA in fact necessitates discrimination.

The government has no business dictating the demographics of an employer’s staff roster. They have no idea about the individual contexts and requirements of any business, let alone every business. While the EEAA acts like a business can seek an exception, this is a gamble. There is no guarantee that a government official will respect an employer’s pleas. This means that employers are likely to downsize to stay below the 50-employee threshold, shrinking our economic growth and employment potential.

The EEAA also specifically omits white men, an entire demographic making up 3.6% of South Africa (as of 2022). Which means that companies wanting to remain compliant will need to refrain from employing any white men regardless of merit until they have met an arbitrary quota of designated persons.

You cannot achieve a just, fair and democratic society while crafting legislation that actively excludes or preferences portions of the population. Redress is not meant to mean revenge, but increasingly it seems to mean just that.

Apartheid began with race quotas. At its core, it was a system that privileged one group economically over the other. To defeat the legacy of Apartheid isn’t to reverse it, but to get rid of the underlying ideology that led to its formation in the first place.

Multi-racialism and multiculturalism aren’t about regulating our differences and privileges. It’s about embracing our similarities and letting the law be blind to the colour of our skin.

Ministerial overreach

The EEAA grants the Minister of Employment and Labour the ability to impose and set numerical targets on sectors and occupations at a whim. The quotas themselves are not decided by elected legislators, but to be decided at the choosing of the minister.

This is like the proposed Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill (Tobacco Bill), which will give the Minister of Health the ability to pass additional regulations without parliamentary approval.

Granting the executive the right to make laws without the consultation of parliament flies right in the face of our constitution, democratic principles and the necessity of separation of powers.

Too many laws are granting ministers the right to creates additional laws and we should be increasingly worried that our legislature’s authority is being undermined. Most often by its very own members.

Procedural issues

As the EEAA already creates constitutional problems by granting far too much power to the minister, there is also potential constitutional issues in how the law was passed.

Only three public hearing sessions were held by the Employment and Labour Portfolio Committee for the Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEAB) with one additional held by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). By and large, most consultations recorded expressed stark disapproval for the Bill in almost its entirety, with only token support for some aspects of the Bill by others.

These consultants were ignored and their concerns dismissed. Even the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) disapproval was ignored, and the EEAA continues to ignore the different provincial demographics across South Africa.

Four public hearings are also a comparatively low amount. The Health Portfolio Committee has held eighteen public hearings for the Tobacco Bill as of writing, and even this amount has been criticised as being too low. In both cases, public hearings have been more of a box ticking measure, rather than a sincere and substantive step to take into consideration the views of the public.

Rainbow nation

The EEAA will not help mend fractures in our society. It will only serve to benefit the corrupt elites who profit from extracting revenue from companies just trying to survive. It will discourage companies from growing and erode trust in our institutions.

Race quotas are one of the original sins of this country. We don’t fix it by creating more. There lies the path to more racism, more poverty, and ruination.

Nicholas Woode-Smith is the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard. He is a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation and writes in his personal capacity.