ERIC Miyeni's remedy for BEE's failure to enhance blacks' self-respect will only serve to undermine it further (Sowetan, May 17: "Stop making whites even richer with this lame BEE".)
Only one thing will build that self-respect: if blacks and black enterprises are able to deliver quality goods and services as efficiently or more efficiently than whites and white enterprises.
Miyeni's recipe is: "...start giving contracts to black companies and black experts". But that is precisely what has been done in many instances in the past and the results have mostly been disastrous.
For instance, the Department of Housing says it has to rebuild more than 400000 houses because of poor workmanship from black construction companies.
Roads built by "black" companies have disintegrated after less than five years of use.
We read in newspapers of many billions of rands that have disappeared into the pockets of unscrupulous contractors and tenderers who have not delivered the goods they were paid for.
I think Miyeni will have to make peace with reality. The expertise required to rebuild our worn-out infrastructure and provide the new services needed will not come from a more drastic enforcement of BEE, but from the realisation that our country cannot afford that experiment any longer. I am not suggesting that there are no capable blacks or black-owned companies. What I object to is the blanket recipe Miyeni is prescribing.
The "logic" for his "argument" can only be blatant racism.
DC Coetsee, Stompneusbaai
Black builders have failed SA
ERIC Miyeni's remedy for BEE's failure to enhance blacks' self-respect will only serve to undermine it further (Sowetan, May 17: "Stop making whites even richer with this lame BEE".)
Only one thing will build that self-respect: if blacks and black enterprises are able to deliver quality goods and services as efficiently or more efficiently than whites and white enterprises.
Miyeni's recipe is: "...start giving contracts to black companies and black experts". But that is precisely what has been done in many instances in the past and the results have mostly been disastrous.
For instance, the Department of Housing says it has to rebuild more than 400000 houses because of poor workmanship from black construction companies.
Roads built by "black" companies have disintegrated after less than five years of use.
We read in newspapers of many billions of rands that have disappeared into the pockets of unscrupulous contractors and tenderers who have not delivered the goods they were paid for.
I think Miyeni will have to make peace with reality. The expertise required to rebuild our worn-out infrastructure and provide the new services needed will not come from a more drastic enforcement of BEE, but from the realisation that our country cannot afford that experiment any longer. I am not suggesting that there are no capable blacks or black-owned companies. What I object to is the blanket recipe Miyeni is prescribing.
The "logic" for his "argument" can only be blatant racism.
DC Coetsee, Stompneusbaai