18/07/2024
Feeling isnpired to put my thought down in paper.
The skills set of SA.
SA had a very skilled labour force in the automotive industry, textiles, steel product manufacturing, paper and pulp, glass, plastics, and paper boxes.
We were among the leaders in the mining sectors of various products, albeit the mining accidents and deaths were high.
We had an established beneficiating industry for cutting and polishing diamonds, using gold and platinum to create various products.
These industries were developed in the era of non-technology use. Technology has made life easy, but our people are less employed, and the skilled forces are dying without passing the skills to the next generation.
This was dependent on the investor community that wanted to keep low wages and the status quo of apartheid to continue. The Freedom Charter of nationalisation was abandoned in Favor of these foreign investors. But they still left anyway, with the government left with eggs on their faces.
The remaining businesses introduced the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), which the government adopted with both arms. This was to select a few politically connected individuals who were activists during the apartheid period. The intention was to create a new layer of black elites to protect the super-rich individuals who amassed their wealth during apartheid.
Instead of creating a dual system of national industry and private business, the government allowed businesses to move their head offices to other international areas, reducing the country's jobs. They were trying to attract other international investors while others were running away.
It seemed paradoxical that when people are jumping ship, you expect some to jump on board. I will call this a delusion of expectation. The country had good infrastructure, skills, and knowledge to take the country forward.
However, politicians are not businesspeople and may not start a business venture. They legislate and enable the environment for business to be a level playing field. However, their box-ticking strategy made many people feel excluded, as they wanted the businesses to have blacks and whites as if it was a good panacea for success.
Both Black and White people could not start anything without having a BEE part, and Black people suffered more, as they were considered not fit to run a business without the help of whites.
Most professional black people successfully run their businesses without collaboration, such as in the medical industry, legal practices, engineering practices, etc.
Uncontrolled political posturing by people without skills has proved to be a recipe for disaster, especially in South Africa. We need minimum skill set requirements to become a politician or office bearer in the political body.
Afrikaners employed meritocracy to change their plight in sixty years, supported by the US. However, we never had any support; we could have put patriotic and black-conscious people into leading the masses.
