Daily News Articles for the General Sector, 2008

Minister Alec Erwin was asked at a recent meeting of the South African Business Club in London, whether Affirmative Action was dead in South Africa and whether government should not do away with it now? The implication was that affirmative action was exacerbating the skills shortage in the country.

The reply provided by the Minister was a lengthy one but the key points made were as follows :

• That the affirmative action policy was a necessity and had been successful by and large.
• That it was his view that if we had not implemented the affirmative action policies, the current skills crisis would have been markedly worse as we would not have given people the requisite work experience.
• That young South Africans should be cautious about listening to people who stress the problems of affirmative action to essentially make political points. In this context he dealt with the specific allegations made by Solidarity in relation to Eskom.
• That paradoxically the policy was a dead issue for the skilled young whites as both the evidence and the need for skills showed that in the professions and managerial positions whites were being employed. Accordingly, for young South Africans in the audience they should not be mislead by the political propaganda passing as fact.