African National Congress (ANC) treasurer general Paul Mashatile said on Monday that government must strengthen and expand funding for black industrialists and also create platforms for new entrepreneur industrial classes that can fully harness the resources of the country.
Mashatile was addressing the media, following the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting over the weekend. He assured that the party’s fifty-fifth national elective conference in December will deliberate around improving the lives of the majority black population who still live in poverty.
He said the ANC must continue to spare no efforts to implements its programme to tackle the triple fault lines of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
“NEC remains clear that the movement it leads remains resolutely committed to the implementation of broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE). It noted that whilst progress has been made in empowering people and women in the economy, the benefits of the progress have not been felt by all South Africans,” he explained.
As President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his address to the NEC on Sunday, Mashatile reiterated the need for the ANC to intensify rather than relax BBBEE measures such as skills development, preferential procurement, investment in black-owned and -managed firms and an increase in the number of black people who manage, own and control enterprises and productive assets in the economy.
Mashatile explained that such measures had been implemented in the context of an economy with a degree of market concentration which limits the opportunity for new entrance.
“We have, therefore, been using our competition laws to promote emergence of new black-owned companies in various sectors of our economy. The NEC, however, noted that we need to do more and that there are attempts on the part of opposition parties to reserve this critical policy of economic transformation,” he added.
He said the party must also do more to advance the empowerment of young people.
The NEC noted the creation of a youth employment service, established with the private sector.
In only two years, the youth employment service created opportunities for many thousands of unemployed young South Africans, with 84% of participants being youth and 62% women.
Meanwhile, the NEC said it noted the work by Treasury in responding to the Constitutional Court deadline on preferential procurement in the public sector.
The NEC reaffirmed its position that BBBEE remained its key policy instrument and urged all its deployees to ensure that this principle was sustained.
Mashatile said the ANC, through its economic transformation committee, would monitor progress in government and continue to engage with stakeholders, especially black business and professionals.
He explained that the ANC’s NEC deliberated on the recent congresses of its alliance partners, the South African Communist Party and Cosatu at which its party leaders were booed and refused an audience.
He said the ANC’s elective conference would discuss the status of the alliance.
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