The politics of forgetting cannot redress injustice

THE DA's Public Procurement Amendment Bill proposes replacing the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) framework with a nonracial, outcomes-based procurement model that measures inclusion through poverty, performance and social impact.

- PROFESSOR JOSEPH SEKHAMPU

POVERTY and vulnerability remain disproportionately concentrated among those historically dispossessed, says the writer.

(Pexels)

It calls for a shift from identity-based policy to measurable developmental results, arguing that empowerment should now be about poverty rather than race, about performance rather than participation.

The proposal speaks to a growing public fatigue with policies seen as politicised or captured, and to a desire for a system that rewards competence and delivery.

Yet beneath its administrative logic lies a deeper question: Can justice be pursued through neutrality, or must it be anchored in the historical conditions that produced inequality in the first place?

For nearly three decades, BEE has been the state’s main instrument of economic redress, conceived as a moral response to centuries of exclusion from property, capital and opportunity. Its intent was restorative, linking justice to historical repair, but its implementation has often fallen short.

Over time, the policy’s moral purpose was weakened by limited oversight, political capture and the concentration of benefits among a small elite.

While it expanded ownership and representation in some sectors, broad-based participation and structural change have remained elusive.

The JSE’s transformation dashboard shows black economic interest at about 14% in 2024, with voting tights around 25%; black women’s economic interest stood at 5% and their voting rights at 11%. These figures reflect progress in form but not in substance. This vacuum has led to the DA's proposal, which promises inclusion without ideology and reform without history.