Xarog decides to get stuck in and say something that will probably earn him alot of flak...
Mbeki has recently complained about the braindrain in which educated South Africans are going overseas, especially to Europe and the UK to find jobs there, and that Europe should stop poaching jobs from SA waters. Wryly, a UK govt. official replied that South Africans might be more inclined to stay if there was a change in the government sanctioned employment policies within South Africa.
I think it's safe to say that most of those going overseas for such jobs are white people. I think this is something that the ANC missed. Every time it complains about the fact that there is a shortage of jobs, does it take into account that many of those who are skilled in those areas have left or are leaving the country because it's easier for them to find jobs overseas?
I think many people under the thumb of Apartheid blurred the lines between demanding equal rights, and demanding a better quality of life. Without equal rights one cannot have a high quality of life, but even with those rights, you have to work in order to get to a position where you can earn enough money to buy some of the finer things in life. This is not supposed to be a grant or a hand-me-out. The Apartheid era did reserve jobs for white people, but if you didn't do your job, you were out on your arse, boy. This isn't the case anymore. People with BEE jobs aren't held to the same standards that are applied to non-BEE jobs and this is a big mistake.
A few years ago a member of the ANC govt. admitted that it was embarrasing that whenever they needed to get something done quickly, they had to turn to white people to do it. More recently, another minister has said that he likes his whiteys working for him.
The bottom line is that you don't effect a reformation in the blink of an eye, and you certainly don't do it by legislating how many people hold a job. I think it would have been a far better idea to leave the white people in their current positions while doing everything you can to educate everyone who was previously disadvantaged to the point that they could compete on a level playing field for whatever job they wanted (this includes extensive apprenticeships, and perhaps even giving experienced whites totally new jobs as teachers). BEE costs the country money, which costs the government taxes. It robs people employed under it of their pride, because they got the jobs because of their skin colour rather than their skills or suitability for the job. Those taxes could otherwise be used to give everyone a quality education.
In a recent real-world example, our telephones went down when someone stole some cables. We have a normal line as well as an adsl line. Those are two different departments when it comes to faults, and you have to log a fault with the adsl dept. if you have adsl enabled on the line, even if the problem is something like a cable being stolen. We learned from one of the techs that the adsl fault section is reserved for AA positions. The old experienced white techs are all working with faults on normal lines, meanwhile the less experienced guys are trying to sort out the adsl fault. Anyone with 2 braincells realises that the adsl faults are more complex and harder to resolve than faults that occur on normal lines. So why have inexperienced people do jobs that are over their head?* Furthermore, why seperate the experienced and inexperienced into two different departments, where those with experience can't teach those without?
I'm not really that worried about AA. Sure, it's stupid, but despite the fact that I have white skin, I know if I work hard I'll find a job that allows me to support myself and one day support a family. I don't think AA will survive in the long term, it's too costly and it achieves too little.
*They fixed the cable a week ago. For some stupid reason, the people putitng the cable up didn't reconnect all the lines properly. We phoned in a fault report for both lines *again*. The normal line was fixed within 24 hours, while we're still waiting for the adsl line to get fixed, despite the fact that the records show that someone did infact come out to look at the adsl line.
Sign up with Google
) and also talk with black people in general everyone just wants to move on.
