Private sector needs to come to the party on transformation – Ramaphosa

The business sector needs to urgently do some serious introspection. South Africa’s transformative agenda cannot succeed unless all its people work together to broaden the participation of all South Africans in the economy, and it begins in the workplace.

This was the word from President Cyril Ramaphosa in his weekly newsletter to the country on Monday morning.

When it came to transformation, he said, the “significant progress that has been made in the public sector has not been matched by the private sector”.

Ramaphosa used as his reference the report released by the Commission for Employment Equity in August.

The Commission for Employment Equity Report 2018- 2019 found that white people were the dominant group in top management positions, despite being among the lowest economically active population group in the country.

Ramaphosa said the report suggested “at best, to poor adherence to employment equity legislation, and, at worst, outright disregard for the law”.

“The upper echelons of management in private companies are still dominated by white men, although they make up just 5% of the economically active population. Africans only make up 15% of top management, despite accounting for 79% of the economically active population,” said Ramaphosa.

“Poor labour relations is in part fuelled by perceptions – backed up by the Employment Equity report – that black employees are relegated to the factory floor while white employees occupy management roles. This inequity naturally has ugly consequences when it comes to the discrepancy in incomes, where black workers will always earn a fraction of what white workers and managers earn.”

Ramaphosa said that advancing black and female employees must be a cornerstone of any company’s operations.

“This must move beyond merely ensuring compliance, and towards succession planning, mentoring, training and skills transfer, and towards giving employees a meaningful stake in the companies they work for,” he said, adding that black economic empowerment and affirmative action were important tools to further non-racial transformation.

“As we intensify the work we must do to address the injustices of the past – especially in correcting the skewed race and gender composition of our public companies – we must ensure that all South Africans, regardless of colour, have an opportunity to contribute to building a better, fairer and more prosperous nation.”

Ramaphosa called on South Africans to embrace each other as equals, and look beyond their preconceptions of someone merely by looking at their skin colour

“Let us move beyond the psychological barrier in the interests of rebuilding this country together.”

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