Storm brews as DA’s anti-BEE billboard takes aim at ANC

A POLITICAL firestorm has erupted in the country, exposing deep ideological differences within the Government of National Unity (GNU) following the DA’s controversial launch of a billboard on Johannesburg's bustling N1 highway.

- MASHUDU SADIKE

The billboard, emblazoned with the provocative slogan, “BEE made ANC elites rich, and left SA poor. Choose real opportunities for all! Vote DA,” has drawn the immediate condemnation of the ANC, signalling a renewed clash between the GNU’s two largest political entities.

The public statement by the DA, which took aim directly at the ANC’s flagship broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) policy, has effectively reignited longstanding debates about economic transformation and redress in a country still grappling with the profound legacies of apartheid.

Mat Cuthbert, the DA’s head of policy, defended the billboard’s message.

“This advertisement is telling the truth about what many South Africans already supposedly know -that BEE has failed under the ANC,” Cuthbert said on Tuesday.

He painted a stark picture of the policy’s alleged shortcomings.

“It has made a handful of politically connected individuals wealthy, while the rest of the country has been left behind. For three decades, this policy has been sold as empowerment, but it has delivered the opposite.”

Cuthbert's critique extended to the societal impact, highlighting widespread economic hardship.