“Without transformation, there is no peace. Without peace, there is no investment.”
When the DA’s head of policy, Mat Cuthbert, called on the ANC to abandon BEE and other so-called “race-based” policies, he revealed a deeper misunderstanding of SA’s economic reality, one that confuses privilege for principle.
Transformation is not a burden on the economy. It is its stabilising force. The global evidence, from Malaysia to post-war Germany, shows that inclusive development is not only morally right but also economically sound. Societies that close opportunity gaps are the same societies that sustain peace, attract investment and grow their productive base.
BEE, employment equity and enterprise development are not symbolic politics. They are pragmatic responses to 300 years of exclusion and economic apartheid. These policies expand participation, grow domestic demand and cultivate a new class of black professionals and entrepreneurs who keep the economy dynamic.
Contrary to what critics suggest, transformation does not repel investors. It creates the predictability and cohesion that markets thrive on. Long-term investors look for stable societies with growing middle classes, not fractured ones where inequality threatens democracy itself.
The ANC’s recently announced economic action plan is not a populist manifesto; it’s a disciplined roadmap grounded in global best practice. Its 10 focus areas mirror what international financial institutions prescribe for sustainable growth.
Critics often conflate corruption with empowerment. But corruption is not the child of transformation; it is the child of greed and weak enforcement. The answer is not to roll back empowerment but to improve it, ensuring better procurement systems, cleaner governance and stronger links between empowerment and productivity.
SA has never lacked policy vision. What it has lacked, at times, is follow-through. The ANC’s economic action plan aims to correct that by marrying empowerment to performance and transformation to tangible outcomes.
Abandoning transformation now would be reckless. It would threaten the very social contract that has held this country together since 1994. Even global investors demand diversity and local empowerment, not as a “checkbox exercise” but as a measure of long-term stability and innovation.
“Race-neutral” growth, as the opposition likes to call it, is not neutral at all. It simply means growth that continues to exclude the majority. The ANC’s commitment to transformation is not a political convenience; it’s the glue that keeps our democracy intact.
The next frontier of empowerment must be productive. From share certificates to factories owned by black industrialists. From equity targets to skills pipelines and innovation networks. From compliance to competitive output. That is how transformation becomes a nation-building tool rather than a token gesture.
The ANC’s economic action plan is not an experiment in ideology. It’s a pragmatic effort to align SA’s growth path with global models that link inclusion, productivity, and stability. Those who call for the abandonment of transformation are not defending growth; they are defending privilege. Transformation is not a cost to the economy. It is the insurance policy that keeps it alive.
Shupinyane is the ANC national media liaison, writing in his personal capacity
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