IT is deeply troubling to hear that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has called Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a symbol of his country’s moral struggle to move away from the bitterness of apartheid to the great hopes of a democratic racially diverse nation, “a charlatan and a liar.” Mbeki has denied the reports and we hope that he was indeed wrongly quoted.
The differences between the two are rooted in the issue of black empowerment, which has not been without its troubles. In the initial phase, banks were encouraged to lend money, often at subsidized rates, to any black citizen who felt that he could take over or set up a business in which he worked. Unfortunately, while many of these borrowers knew their jobs, they had little idea of how to run a business. The result has been a spectacular number of failed businesses and a major headache for the banks which lent the money. Still anxious to redress the dominance of white capital, the government tried a second time by focusing the empowerment on existing black businessmen or encouraging large companies to take additional directors, often as nonexecutive directors, who could learn high-level business management without undermining the firms of which they were part.
This has undoubtedly led to abuses. Appointments have been made as part of ANC political patronage and already prosperous black businessmen have picked up further opportunities to enrich themselves. It was in light of this that the archbishop protested. The archbishop is both right and wrong. The great majority of black South Africans have not enjoyed the prosperity that they expected and it is good that Tutu is speaking up for them. He is, however, wrong in the sense that the current black empowerment program is almost certainly the only way that wealth can be spread more evenly among all South Africans.
The United States prospered in the late 19th century thanks to the dominance of a relatively few powerful businessmen who were ruthless in their use of economic power. Yet though America is still a country of wealth disparities, most of its citizens have ultimately benefited from the original alarming concentration of wealth. The same process may now be under way in Russia now. Cronyism is an inevitable part of this development.
Nevertheless where Archbishop Tutu deserves to be heard is in the degree to which cronyism is a fact of life in South Africa. There has to be some creative rationale, beyond a reward for past political services, for handing out sinecures. The individuals who benefit should in the main be people who will be able to develop the opportunities they have been given; they cannot be allowed simply to sit back, raking in salaries and dividends while doing nothing to earn either. If black empowerment rewards only timeservers and political cronies, then the South African economy will follow Zimbabwe’s into a nose dive. The archbishop’s warnings therefore deserve to be treated with respect and the ANC government needs to undertake a serious re-evaluation of the process of black empowerment.
