MrGray
Honorary Master
You have to wonder how much of that R365m EEIP winds up financing the businesses of friends and family of connected cadres.![]()
AMAZON WEB SERVICES TO INJECT R365-MILLION TO SUPPORT BLACK-OWNED STARTUPS - Transform SA - The leading Transformation Magazine
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) have signed an agreement that will see 100% black-owned small businesses in the IT sector getting support. The agreement signed on the sidelines of the SA Investment Conference, will see Amazon invest...transformsa.co.za
AWS Equity Equivalent Investment Program
The Amazon Web Services Equity Equivalent Investment Program (AWS EEIP) is an 18-24-month enablement and acceleration program for South African Black-Owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who want to build their AWS business and grow as partners in the Amazon Partner Network (APN). We...aws.amazon.com
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/aws-investment-south-africa-results-economic-ripple-effect/#:~:text=$20 million (ZAR 365 million) in developing 100% black-owned
So much for "non-racialism" in terms of the Constitution. The argument goes that ignoring race would simply freeze the inequalities of the past. Truly, it has done the opposite, and has made everyone but the cadres poorer. Which they likely view as success. Let's see how temporary the "redress" laws are. The government's argument is something to the effect of: As long as there are a majority of poor black people, the measures should either remain in place or increase. As long as they keep black people poor, by design, those measures will have no end date in sight. Why would they want to uplift the people that put them into power, who they then become accountable to, when they could simply steal and then point the finger at others?
Worth noting that Starlink offered to fund an EEIP worth R500m to connect 5000 rural schools. The more cynical among us might observe that that particular EEIP model would make it harder to extract cash than Amazon's more ambiguous "enablement and acceleration program".