12/02/2017
IT'S NOT MY HAND WRITING......
SONA: Every Black Person Must Read What Zuma Said About Radical Economic Transfromation
Latest News South Africa by citysun - February 10, 20170
President Zuma finally defined what radical economic transformation means and what government will be doing to achieve it.
Only ten percent of the top one hundred companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are owned by black South Africans, directly-achieved principally, through the black empowerment codes, according to the National Empowerment Fund.
In terms of the 2015/16 information submitted to the Employment Equity Commission, the representation of whites at top management level amounted to 72 percent whilst African representation was at 10 percent.
The report further provides that white South Africans, in particular males, are afforded higher levels of recruitment, promotion and training opportunities as compared, to the designated groups. At the level of gender at senior management level, males remain dominant at 67.6% and females at 32.4% percent.
The State spends R500 billion a year buying goods and services. Added to this is the nine hundred billion rand infrastructure budget. Those budgets must be used to achieve economic transformation.
As a start, the new regulations making it compulsory for big contractors to subcontract 30 percent of business to black owned enterprises have been finalised and were gazetted on the 20th of January.
Last year I signed into law a provision to criminalize the cartels and collusion and it came into effect on 1 May. It carries jail sentences of up to 10 years.
The property sector in our country is valued at approximately R7 trillion, with the subsidised sector being valued at R1.5 trillion rand. However, less than five percent of the sector is owned or managed by Black people and Africans in particular. A draft Property Practitioners Bill will be published by the Department of Human Settlements for public comment with the purpose of establishing a more inclusive, representative sector, towards radical economic transformation.
We reiterate that radical economic transformation should mean moving beyond share ownership schemes only. We would like to see black people involved directly in business, owning factories. The development of the Black Industrialists programme is thus critical.
The Department will invest approximately one hundred million rand this year on critical capital and maintenance programmes to modernise harbours. They will also continue generating revenue from letting state owned harbours and coastline properties, which will benefit black owned SMMEs.
Government will also continue to pursue policies that seek to broaden the participation of black people and SMMEs, including those owned by women and the youth, in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector.
Only eight million hectares of arable land have been transferred to black people, which is only 9.8 percent of the 82 million hectares of arable land in South Africa.
[[Read Full SONA Speech Here]]
