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South Africa: Black Business Balks At Chinese Empowerment
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Cape Argus (Cape Town)
8 July 2008
Posted to the web 3 July 2008
Gershwin Wanneburg
Black business groups are headed for a clash with the government over its decision not to oppose a Pretoria High Court ruling that gave Chinese South Africans access to black empowerment.
Leading black organisations fear that well-resourced Chinese will squeeze them out of empowerment deals and have requested a meeting with government leaders to get an explanation for letting the court ruling go unopposed.
"We are unhappy with substantive issues that relate to that ruling (which) said that Chinese are black," said Kgan-are Lefoka, treasurer-general of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Nafcoc) in Gauteng.
"We did not necessarily wake up after 1994 and say we are black. Nowhere at that time did we hear Chinese people as a community say they are black people."
He said black business was also unhappy that it had not been consulted about the government's position before it went to court, and had sought legal advice on the ruling, after which it would decide whether to appeal against the decision in the Constitutional Court.
He confirmed that prominent voices such as the Black Management Forum, the Black Lawyers' Association and others were behind the campaign against the ruling.
Lefoka acknowledged that Chinese people had been discriminated against under apartheid, but argued that they were not the intended targets of empowerment laws.
"(T)he aim of equity legislation is to ensure that people who were previously excluded economically will now be included in the mainstream economy," he said.
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"Because Chinese are better resourced, they stand a better chance of securing deals for themselves."
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