DA clarification as clear as mud

THE DA IS CLEARLY CORRECT IN SUGGESTING NEW METHODS OF EMPOWERMENT ARE NECESSARY

At the weekend, it was reported that the DA’s federal congress had rejected BEE. Different party members subsequently confirmed or spurned this notion in social media.

On Monday, the party put the facts on the table. It had rejected BEE, but only in the form the ANC advocated it. The DA was in fact strongly in favour of broadening economic inclusion “for those that have been previously and deliberately excluded by virtue of race, but also gender and disability”.

But it was not in favour of doing so on the basis of race. However that did not mean the party did not unequivocally support the empowerment of black South Africans. The party said it aimed to achieve a society in which race was not a determinant of opportunity, although, it conceded race was currently a determinant of opportunities.

Trying to make sense of this to-ing and fro-ing is head spinning. The BEE debate in the DA reflects other debates in the party on issues such as the minimum wage, which rank-and-file members support but which the senior structures tend to reject, or at least question; and the question of whether the party should focus on the VAT increase, rather than the personal taxes which are now a burning middle-class issue.

The debates in the party reflect its position: there is a huge difference between what the DA wants to be and what it actually is. From the moment it decided it wanted to be a mass party, it has run headlong into a policy contest between its idealist liberal principles and issues that concretely affect the poor, who are, after all, the largest slice of the South African voting public.

Yet, it is worth noting that something has changed in the body politic as a whole. South Africans of all races and classes have begun to be suspicious of BEE because it is obvious that in many cases it is used as a smokescreen behind which to perpetrate fraud.

This has made it possible for the DA to have the debate at all. The debate is between those who think the party could credibly claim to implement BEE in a way that excludes corruption, and those who think it is, in itself, corrupting.

What the rejection of BEE, at least in its ANC-structured form, gives the DA is a sense of “clear water” between itself and the governing party. Yet, as the confusing nature of the debate demonstrates, that water is not so clear.

It should be acknowledged, too, that the data are increasingly supportive of the DA’s position. As Gwen Ngwenya, the party’s new head of policy, pointed out in these pages recently, the earnings differential between white and black has actually increased over the past 21 years. For every R1 received by a white household in 1994, a black household received 23c. Twenty-one years later in 2017, for every R1 received by white households, black households received 20.5c.

What that means is that all the ANC’s much trumpeted policies of change and restitution in favour of black South Africans have essentially been a resounding failure. That is just devastating. The DA is clearly correct in suggesting new methods of empowerment are necessary.

But how? The party says it is still considering the options, and in the meantime cites several. These include a World Bank proposal of a contributory pension which would help provide more South Africans with pension savings and thus exposure to the wealth created by financial assets. It also suggests a tax credit for those who support adult dependants. This would provide support for what has become known colloquially as a “black tax”. And there are others.

These options are all interesting and worth discussing. In the meantime, however, the DA’s problem is that its message is confused and contradictory. Worse, this tends to become even worse when it tries to “clarify” its position. Oddly, this is preferable to the ANC’s version of policy development, which is often blank in specifics and gravitates towards slogans and symbols.

Politics often moves in great leaps. Sometimes it moves in frustrating crab-like fashion. This is one of those crab-like situations, which is both irritating and inevitable.