As jobs crisis persists, SA churches must help end “moral fraud” of fake transformation – IRR

The government and politically connected elites in its orbit are perpetrating a “moral fraud” on the nation’s poor, and the South African Council of Churches (SACC) should step in to help end it, says the country’s oldest independent think tank, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).

The IRR has delivered this plea in a letter to the SACC. It points out that “fake” transformation has doubled black unemployment since 2008, trapped millions in dependency, and enriched only a connected few.

“Fake transformation is a moral fraud being perpetrated on the people of South Africa. It turns justice into a political bargaining chip, and suffering into a convenient smokescreen for extortion, and it reduces individuals with aspirations and rights to racial statistics,” said Hermann Pretorius, IRR head of strategic communications.

“You cannot call it justice when it produces dependency. You cannot speak of redress while robbing people of the freedom to use their God-given talents to make an honest living.”

In its letter to SACC President Bishop Sithembele Sipuka on 13 August, the IRR urges the council to reject these policies as morally indefensible and an affront to the values of South Africa’s large Christian majority. The IRR has requested a meeting with the SACC to discuss how genuine, non-racial, pro-growth transformation can replace policies that classify, divide, infantilise, and patronise the very people they claim to uplift.

Says Pretorius: “In a week when yet more evidence is made public concerning the unrelenting jobs crisis gripping our country, the urgency for true transformation through non-racial, pro-growth reforms cannot be overstated.”

The IRR points to the shared principles in its 1954 values statement, Go Forward in Faith, which affirmed liberty, equal dignity, and the brotherhood of people as understood in Christian teaching – values it says are betrayed by current race-based policy. Under the BEE regime, the IRR notes, economic exclusion has worsened, unemployment has risen sharply, and redistribution schemes have concentrated wealth in the hands of an elite few.

The IRR’s internationally recognised and acclaimed Blueprint for Growth series outlines how to achieve real empowerment: value-for-money governance, education and housing vouchers, deregulation, private-sector-led investment, and removing race as a policy tool. These measures, the IRR says, offer a moral path forward – creating wealth instead of redistributing poverty, and expanding opportunity instead of enforcing demographic quotas.

Pretorius adds: “The failures of fake transformation are not just a policy matter – they are a moral crisis. Many South Africans pay heed to the moral leadership of the SACC. We believe now is the time for the churches to stand with all South Africans in demanding an end to this injustice. The risk in not doing so isn’t simply a threat to the social relevance of entities like the SACC, but the considerably more grave and unjust continuation of unnecessary suffering and poverty – the rotten fruits of policy choices that are too easily treated as unforeseeable, unintended, and unavoidable.”

The IRR says it looks forward to engaging with the SACC on how South Africa can abandon the failed ideology of redistribution and instead pursue a future based on ownership, enterprise, and non-racial dignity.

Media contact: Hermann Pretorius IRR Head of Strategic Communications Tel: 079 875 4290 Email: hermann@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za