By Johnathan Paoli
President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the country’s Equity Equivalent Investment Programme (EEIP) as a critical policy tool to reconcile the country’s imperative for economic redress while attracting sustainable foreign investment.
Writing in his weekly newsletter, Ramaphosa said empowerment laws, such as the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) legal framework, were not a burden, but a strategic asset that supported inclusive growth and long-term economic stability.
“Amongst the most salient features of our country’s empowerment laws are their practicality, feasibility and responsiveness to economic conditions without deviating from the objective of redressing the economic injustices of exclusion of the past,” Ramaphosa said.
The president’s remarks come amid renewed public debate around the EEIP, with critics saying it allows multinationals to bypass B-BBEE ownership requirements.
Ramaphosa pushed back against these claims, describing them as “factually incorrect”, and reaffirmed that the EEIP was firmly embedded in South African law.
“Some
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