Roundup: Zuma vows to change patterns of economic ownership

The South African government will continue to radically transform the economic landscape, including changing the patterns of economic ownership, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.

This can be achieved through the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) laws, aimed at ensuring the transformation of the economy as well as ensuring that black people participate meaningfully in the mainstream of the economy, Zuma said.

He was speaking at the Black Business Tribute Dinner in Johannesburg, honouring black business pioneers who thrived in business during the difficult apartheid era.

"We regard our Black Economic Empowerment legislation including legislation aimed at opening up state procurement to black entrepreneurs and small business, as a critical component of our national effort to banish poverty, joblessness and inequality," said the president.

He emphasized that the uniqueness of the B-BBEE policy is that its successful implementation requires both the public and the private sectors to institutionalize and implement it with utmost vigour.

In order for the B-BBEE policy to succeed in the public sector, the government must use its procurement muscle to sustain and grow black businesses, said Zuma.

Annually, through the public sector procurement system, the government spends in the region of 500 billion rand (about 35.7 billion US dollars) on goods and services and construction works alone, according to Zuma.

In this regard, the buying power of the state is a powerful economic transformation tool which can and must be used to advance black economic empowerment, said Zuma.

Black entrepreneurs are succeeding in various sectors of the economy, including mining, information communication technologies, agriculture, construction and manufacturing, Zuma said.

However, the struggle to de-racialize the ownership and control of the economy and ensure the meaningful participation of the black majority continues, he said.

"We have not yet reached our destination, that is true economic emancipation.

"Our collective task is to fast-track economic transformation so that black business can be part of the mainstream, and not be regarded as an alternative sector of the economy," the president said.

He said the government will introduce a more flexible preferential procurement framework that is responsive to government objectives.

In this regard, the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, which has shortcomings, will be repealed by the Public Procurement Act, which is now going through the different government stakeholder engagement processes before it is tabled in Parliament, according to Zuma.

The new bill is expected to come into effect in early 2017.

Black industrialists need to enter the manufacturing sector and own factories and other production facilities, Zuma said.

"Only then can we say we are transferring or expanding the ownership of the means of production to the black majority," he noted. Endit