BEE has rewarded the connected while failing the poor, IRR tells Tau

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is writing to Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau today to challenge his defence of BEE at the Nedbank Top Empowerment Conference, and his description of criticism of BEE as a politically driven backlash against redress.

He cited more than R600 billion in empowerment transactions and more than R100 billion in recent skills-development spending as evidence of progress.

The IRR will ask Minister Tau, as it has asked the Deputy President and other senior figures in government, to answer for BEE’s record in the lives of ordinary South Africans.

The IRR does not dispute that BEE has benefited some people. It has produced ownership deals, procurement advantages, compliance industries, charter councils, consultants, politically connected intermediaries, and a small class of well-positioned beneficiaries. The question is why a policy defended in the name of the poor has delivered its clearest rewards to those already closest to political and corporate power.

As BEE has become more entrenched, South Africa has moved further away from the growth, investment, and job-creation conditions needed for broad-based empowerment.

IRR research shows that South Africa’s GDP per capita has stagnated since 2008 while global GDP per capita has grown by more than a third. The number of unemployed people has risen from 4.3 million in 2008 to 8.1 million in 2026, while the official unemployment rate rose from 22.8% to 32.7%. To reduce unemployment below 10% within a decade, South Africa needs about 900,000 net new jobs a year, yet it has managed only about 240,000 a year over the past two decades.

Says Hermann Pretorius, IRR head of strategic communications and author of the IRR’s recent polling reports: “IRR polling shows that South Africans increasingly understand empowerment in practical rather than bureaucratic terms: as work, competence, better services, and direct support to households, not as another layer of racial compliance.

“That is why job creation remains the country’s top priority, why 84% of registered voters support merit-based appointments, and why 81.7% want government procurement to be driven by value for money rather than race-based premiums that force the state to pay more for the same goods and services.”

The same pattern is clear in the 76.3% support for voucher-based access to housing, education, and healthcare, which shows that voters want empowerment to reach families directly instead of being filtered through state controls, tender systems, and politically connected intermediaries.

Adds Pretorius: “BEE has become a policy that cannot fail in the eyes of its defenders, because every failure is treated as proof that South Africa needs more BEE,” said Hermann Pretorius, Head of Strategic Communications at the IRR. “That is not evidence-based redress. It is a closed political system that protects insiders, rewards proximity to power, and tells poor South Africans to keep waiting.”

In its letter, the IRR asks Minister Tau to answer for BEE’s record, but also to engage with the alternatives already put forward by the IRR: the No More Race Laws Bill, to end racial classification and target disadvantage directly; the Value For Money Bill, to ensure public money buys the best services at the best price; and the Freedom From Poverty Bill, to replace BEE’s trickle-down model with direct support for those most in need.

After 25 years, Minister Tau must explain why South Africa should persist with race-based laws that have failed the poor when workable alternatives exist to empower the disadvantaged directly.

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