By Thebe Mabanga
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has intensified its call for scrapping of Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) through a protest and the unveiling of a billboard in Johannesburg and effectively campaigning for the 2026 Local Government Elections, pulling out its drawcard Helen Zille, Chairperson of the Federal Council and Mayoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg.
Zille called next year’s local government elections “the last chance” for South Africa’s municipalities and metros to be salvaged from poor service delivery.
The DA’s billboard, visible along the N1, reads: “BEE made ANC elite rich and left SA poor. Choose real opportunities for all.”
The Blue party states that after three decades, empowerment has delivered the opposite, with 12 million unemployed and 44 million living in poverty.
“While a few benefit from inflated contracts and state tenders, the majority continue to pay the price for corruption and greed,” the party said, pointing to procurement as source of corruption but also the central pillar that the DA’s strategy rests on
Last week, the party released its Economic Inclusion for All Bill, which it says should, within 12 months of adoption, remove all references to B-BBBEE in legislation and shut down the B-BBEE Commission.
The Commission, a unit within the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, has rejected the DA’s calling it “regression disguised as reform”.
The Commission expressed several misgivings about the DA’s call but particularly took issue with the party’s assertion that its bill and its argument is based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
“It is conceptually flawed to counterpose the imperative for redress and transformation through B-BBEE with global frameworks such as SDGs, which guide countries to build just and transformed societies,” the Commission said.
“While SDGs are necessary global standards to guide the building of just and equitable societies, they are high-level generic aspirations which require translating into domestic legislation and policies informed by national circumstances, which is a role already fulfilled by the B-BBEE Act and other existing frameworks in South Africa”
The Commission went on to argue that the B-BBBEE framework and the scorecard in its current form supports a number of SDGs, starting with SDG1 of ending poverty, SDG4 (quality education) SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 8 of promoting inclusive growth and decent jobs, SDG 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and SDG 10 (reducing inequality).
Bridget Masango, the DA’s deputy spokesperson on social development on social development, said “South Africa is facing a crisis that can no longer be ignored.”
Masango cited the country’s malnutrition crisis, where 155 children are reported to have died in the first quarter and 4700 are reported to have been hospitalised.
She did not, however, elaborate on how BEE caused this.
Masango went on to argue that “social grants stretched” and the DA’s brings empowerment that is “guided by need, not race by impact not corruption.”
Mat Cuthbert, DA MP and head of policy stated that there is “a shift in the national mood” and that the bill enjoys South Africans “from all walks of life” without providing evidence for either claim, including from the DA’s internal polling.
Cuthbert pointed out that South Africans want real change.
“Not trickle-down redress on offer for past thirty years,” said Cuthbert.
He pointed that the Bill would help SA invest in skills and provide empowerment based on need, not race and no political connection.
He also said the ANC excludes SMME’s.
Jack Bloom, the DA’s veteran Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and spokesperson on Health, used the case of Thembisa Hospital, not far from where the Billboard was unveiled.
With a current financial year budget of R 1.6 billion, the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) found that between 2018 and 2022, the facility was bled of R2.3 billion paid to 843 companies in corrupt payments in some instances with no services rendered.
He cited this as BEE failure.
DA billboard: BEE made ANC elites rich, and left SA poor. PHOTO: X/OurDA
Zille argued that the BEE and cases such as Thembisa Hospital exposes “moral bankruptcy of the ANC” and went on to link State Capture to BEE and described the National Prosecuting Authority as a “desperate disappointment.”
She noted that the DA’s policy will “help the poor up the ladder, not enrich the elite,” and argued that the DA’s ideas date back to the 1990s.
Zille rejected the idea that race is a determinant of opportunity in SA, arguing that it “comes down to poverty and unemployment” and pointed to the Western Cape where the DA governs and the official unemployment rate on the second quarter of this year stood at 21.1 %, more than 10 percentage point below the national average.
Zille also attributed the recent sense of urgency displayed by Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero in resolving challenges such as water supply to her announcement as mayoral candidates.
“That’s what competition does, it makes you up your game,” Zille said.
Zille was also contemptuous of the EFF as a reliable governing partner either at municipality or provincial level, arguing that all the party wants to do is to influence the administrative appointments of who controls tenders.
Cutberth said the Bill is currently out for comment for 30 days and will then make its way to parliament for its first reading debate.
The DA says it will write to all parties, including those outside of the Government of National Unity (GNU) to support the bill.
The ANC has rejected the bill, calling on beneficiaries of BEE to defend the policy while President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that “BEE is going nowhere,” while the EFF and Umkhonto Wesizwe (MKP) have also hinted at rejecting the bill.
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