Facts About Employment Equity in SA

The chairperson of the Commission for Employment Equity, Jimmy Manyi, told the parliament portfolio committee on labour issues that there was a general decline in reporting by companies on their annual employment equity reports.

At that time he provided government with statistic reflecting the period between year 2000 to 2006. He revealed that the overall increase was sitting at only 9.5% with Africans at 5.1%, Coloureds at 2% and Indians at 2.4%. This was obviously not a good picture if you take into consideration that it reflected a period of 6 years. One would expect that Manyi’s report would have sparked trouble and reaction by the ministry of labour.

Manyi pin pointed that racism existed among white gatekeepers in many companies and he recommended that the employment equity act had to be amended if things were to improve. He also highlighted that the problem was the perception there was insufficient skills in South Africa.
Now this was in 2006 and Manyi was addressing government and specifically the portfolio committee on labour!!!

The Mail and Guardian newspaper published an article title “South African companies are like Irish coffee -- white on top and black at the bottom ...” The article was dated September 29 2007. Mail and Guardian enjoys readership from a very wide spectrum of our society and mostly –government officials and companies’ directors and executive officers.

Now if you look closer into how the issue of equity has evolved and spoken about, taking reports by media, you will realise that there has been enough coverage of the subject by media. If you look at some articles published between years 2000 to 2006 some of these come to mind:
"Union questions Employment Equity Report"
"Manyi slated over AA (affirmative action) claims"
"Affirmative action discriminates"
"Shrills, skills and racist ills"
"Government policy 'aggravates skills crisis' "
"Parallel worlds"; and
"Don't question employment equity"

Our former President Thabo Mbeki, in his weekly newsletters he published on July 20 2007 he said “This brings into sharp focus the challenge we face vigorously to address the racial and gender imbalances in the distribution of wealth, income and opportunity all of us inherited from centuries of colonialism and apartheid. The issue of employment equity is critical in this regard.”
Now the same Manyi reports again in 2009 and he reveals that that white men represented 61% of top management, enjoyed 48% of all recruitment and made up 45% of all employees promoted to this level. In this category, Indian men represent 5% and coloured men 4%, whereas white women represent 12%, black women less than 3.8% and coloured and Indian women just about 1.9%. The same Mail and Guardian publishes the report with attractive headlines and surely the president will also reflect strongly on this, just like former president Mbeki did.

Why has government not acted decisively on this matter?

This is one of many questions it is very difficult to understand. One would have expected that if any subject received the president’s attention there will be a quick move from government side and specifically the ministry of labour. What is it that has caused those affected by the lack of government’s commitment, to keep quiet and never make noise about this? What is it that we can do differently this time to deal with this problem?