A week ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the Tourism Equity Fund – a public-private partnership initiative – to shore up transformation and diversity in the capital-intensive tourism and associated industries. The fund, which has been seeded with R540m to be managed by the Small Enterprise Finance Agency, seeks to “accelerate the quantitative and qualitative increase in participation by black entrepreneurs” especially youth and women-owned firms and co-operatives.
When launching this long-overdue initiative, which is expected to be grown to R1.2bn with contributions from the commercial banks over a three-year period, Ramaphosa said: “The task before us now is to ensure we do not simply return to business as usual, but that we focus on accelerating the pace towards our transformation goals.”
Tourism, which contributes about 3% to the gross domestic product directly and about 9% indirectly and at best of times 1.5m jobs across the value chain, is one of the potential game-changers in terms of addressing our triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality. However, the reality is that it has been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic.
I know this intimately because I am a modest participant in the sector. While we welcome the fund’s launch, it is but a small step towards helping this sector transform and diversify. For, if this economy continues to work for some – not all its citizens – the gains of the democratic breakthrough of 1994 are likely to be short-lived. Unfortunately, not everyone is behind this transformation imperative in our country.
Two rightwing organisations, Solidarity and AfriForum, have characterised the fund as racist, calculated to destroy white companies, and, as has become customary, have threatened to run to the courts of law. Readers will recall that this is not the first time the pair has sought to undermine the transformation agenda of the country. Late last year, they took tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane to court over the insistence that firms qualifying for the tourism relief assistance should also be compliant with the broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) laws of the country.
Accordingly, the latest threats are coming as no surprise. Of course, the government, especially the tourism minister, should be encouraged to defend this litigation as soon as the papers are served on her. And all proponents and advocates of transformation should stand with the government against these retrogressive forces in our country. However, this is one important action.
At a broader level, perhaps the time has arrived for us to have an honest national dialogue as a country about the future we want. If the future we want is a return to apartheid or a subtler version of apartheid, where a few black Africans are allowed – if not co-opted – to participate in the mainly white-dominated economy made up of a few large companies, then we have a bigger challenge on our hands.
When South Africans went into the first-ever all-race elections in 1994, the majority was unanimous in its desire to break free from a past economy that relied on a fraction of its workforce. To this end, they also adopted a constitution that would enable a redress of past injustices. In part, this redress finds expression through such instruments as the BBBEE and Employment Equity acts.
Both laws are still in force as the injustice still persists. That the bulk of economic sectors is still in the hands of white South Africans – in terms of ownership and management control – and that the majority of South Africans still live in abject poverty in squatter camps across the country is testament of the ongoing need for redress. If we don’t collectively address this injustice, then the social stability we have hitherto enjoyed will soon be a thing of the past.
To question the rationality and lawfulness of BBBEE is not only disingenuous, but it is to launch a full-frontal attack on the very constitution upon which the new nation was founded. This cannot be allowed to happen. Until we all share common facts about where our country’s economy is today, we will continue to have the likes of AfriForum and Solidarity making us believe there is no need for transformation and diversity. If we work together, we should be able to see a quick rebound of the tourism sector.
Quite easily, with our abundant natural resources, this is an industry that can generate meaningful livelihoods for millions of black Africans in our country.
• Zungu is president of the Black Business Forum and founder of Zungu Investment Company which owns AmaZulu Football Club.
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