OPINION | Gabriel Crouse: Race, BEE and Rob Hersov: A response to Qaanitah Hunter - News24

Gabriel Crouse

Provocateur Rob Hersov drew criticism in a column on News24 for a "white excellence" reference in a speech against BEE. BEE must go, as should public calls for white pride.

News24 columnist Qaanitah Hunter argues there is "a concerted effort to undo the progress of the past few decades… It is a scary, scary world".

This is the conclusion of her piece "Musk wannabes have blown their cover", which focuses on entrepreneur Rob Hersov, referring to a speech he made at a recent BizNews conference in which he called for white pride, and an end to BEE.

In his talk, Hersov mentioned my work approvingly and recommended making donations to the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), among others, to liberalise South Africa. This is welcome. (The white pride stuff is not.)

Both Hersov and Hunter have made mistakes, which, each in their own way, show how conversations about BEE go awry.

Hersov called for white pride and made white people seem scarier than they really are; Hunter flatters his ego by going further into "scary" talk while failing to reflect on how some quarters are eager to do away with BEE.

White pride versus public interest

Hersov said "what we must do is take some credit as white people for the amount of work we've done since 1994 in paying trillions in tax"… He added a few other things that "we" are supposed to "take credit" for "as white people".

That is a seriously bad idea. He should stop it now. White pride is repugnant, as is any race pride in our rainbow republic.

If anyone should take credit for paying tax, it's taxpayers.

Taxpayers include all races. As it happens, most taxpayers are black, and most tax is paid by black people. That wasn't true 20 years ago, but it is today.

Also, if one must get into talk of pride and shame, as taxpayers we should all be ashamed. Twenty-two cents in every rand services debt. An additional 10 cents may be purely wasted on corrupt procurement spending. That means about a third of the budget is gone - poof - before anything useful gets done. That is a shame.

Taxpayers of all races want more for less, which can be achieved by cutting BEE preference premiums in public procurement to R0. Presently, they are capped at 25% for contracts under R50 million and 11.1% for larger tendered contracts.

Cutting them to nil would be good for almost everyone. The current, confusing BEE premium system facilitates state capture in procurement, according to the Zondo Report. BEE premiums also hurt delivery and economic growth, according to the IMF, World Bank, and Harvard’s Growth Lab.

The internationally recognised failings in our public procurement system erode job opportunities. Black unemployment increased from 5.5 million (expanded definition) in 2008 to 11.1 million in 2024. 

The ANC's planned VAT hike to pay for everything, including expanded BEE premiums, means taxing an extra R12.7 billion from people who spend R6 900 or less per month over the next two years.  

That is unacceptable. The DA and (almost all) smaller parties refuse to accept it.

The DA was also right to add a negotiating demand to end BEE premiums, though its mechanism (amending a law that is not yet in force) of trying to do that is bizarrely abstract.

BEE - How it survives

Despite all this, BEE premiums will survive this "budget crisis", as Hunter calls. One reason is National Treasury does not publish BEE premium total costs, which is unlawful, but how many journalists and publications turn a blind eye?

Shielding BEE premiums from public attention is vital to BEE supporters, because BEE premiums are so unpopular. In a small poll it commissioned at the end of 2024, the IRR asked a random sample of people if BEE premiums should continue to be paid or be cut to R0.

Seventy percent of all respondents, and 66% of black respondents, who took part in the sample preferred cutting BEE premiums to R0.

Those who want to cut BEE premiums to R0 were split between some who want to keep race as a tiebreaker, and others who would like to do away with race entirely.

Since Hunter's piece about "Musk wannabees" focuses so much on the US, it is worth noting this 70% is roughly analogous to the current US Supreme Court split on affirmative action.

Two years ago, the majority famously ruled against all race preferences in university admissions. The minority wanted to keep race only as a "tiebreaker".

But the maximum value for money option in procurement that 70% prefer here is not on the cards for anyone politically, and Hersov falsely claimed this is because most black South Africans do not want it.

He tried damning BEE with faint praise by claiming most people want it because they are just too afraid of whites.

"White South Africans excel at academics and competition", he said, so that "competing with us on merit remains a scary prospect that most black South Africans won't support".

But that is not true.

Again, in last year's IRR poll, 66% of black respondents preferred cutting BEE premiums to R0.

Is there any fear of merit? Yes. Apartheid lasted for nearly a century (in various forms) out of a fear of merit among the white electorate, and some of that fear and its obverse survives residually. But things have changed epically, and evidence clearly shows today most South Africans would much rather do away with BEE premiums, whatever your theory is of how fear, hope and common sense mix into that.

IRR polls give another data point to dispel Hersov's claim most black people are too scared of whites to give up BEE.

"With better education and more jobs, the present inequality between races will steadily disappear."

Since 2013, that question has been asked most years, and between 70 and 80% of black respondents have always agreed.

That shows it is common knowledge on an even playing field no race excels.

Polling about BEE using a range of questions, some better than others, indicates most black people want to get rid of it, again, and again, and again, and again.

Against all this evidence, Hersov unwittingly did the ANC's dirty work, peddling the unsubstantiated propaganda line BEE is inevitably popular among most black people. Not helping.

Hunter risks unwittingly doing the dirty work of those she aims to criticise too. She paints a picture of such a "scary, scary world" where (some) whites aim to dominate in a literally global "concerted effort".

There is nothing to support that fear in South Africa today. To the contrary, the best way for columnists like Hunter to embarrass white pride talk is not to flatter its power by exaggeration but rather to skewer it via the reporting of facts.

Conclusion

Hunter acknowledges there is a decent public interest argument against BEE, while identifying another "brazen" effort to boost white pride. However, she then writes the latter is "wrapped up in" the former, which is not fair.

Hunter also fails to note the white pride "credit" call to end BEE is self-defeating, since ending BEE is certain to be the last nail in the coffin of "white excellence" braggadocio, as 70 to 80% of people already know, and the rest would find out.

Finally, there are two kinds of anti-BEE argument, but only one pro-BEE argument. Total silence around the cost of BEE premiums settles what kind of argument that is.

Gabriel Crouse is a fellow at the Institute of Race Relations.

https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/columnists/guestcolumn/opinion-gabriel-crouse-race-bee-and-rob-hersov-a-response-to-qaanitah-hunter-20250408