Much has been said on Jimmy Manyi's views on the "oversupply" of coloureds in the Western Cape. But it's not just coloureds who should be worried.
An amendment bill currently before parliament. removes a provision in the Employment Equity Act of 1998 that requires employers to take into account the "demographic profile of the national and regional economically active population".
This is changed to require alignment with "the demographic profile of the economically active population". The concern is that only the national population profile would then apply, hitting coloureds particularly hard in the Western Cape.
Whereas the economically active population of the Western Cape is currently 55 percent coloured and only 29 percent African, the picture nationally is 74 percent African and 11 percent coloured.
Indians would also be affected badly because they live mostly in KwaZulu/Natal, and about half of employed whites in Gauteng would have to lose their jobs to fit the national profile.
It's madness, of course, and President Jacob Zuma has denied that this would occur.
But it is the inescapable logic of this amendment which was drawn up when Manyi was director general of the Labour Department. In Manyi's own words, there is an "over-concentration" of coloureds in the Western Cape and they should "spread in the rest of the country".
It's an appalling racist mindset that has been deservedly castigated. The broader problem is with the Employment Equity Act itself. Employers have to file employment equity plans with numerical goals for the advancement of people from designated groups.
While there is a huge shortage of skilled labour, the burden of proof is on the company to show why racial "equity" has not been achieved in all positions. The amendment bill introduces harsher fines - up to 2% of turnover for an initial failure to make reasonable progress towards national demographics.
With more perceived contraventions it can rise as high as 10% of turnover. It is relevant to note that our Constitution only requires broad representivity in the civil service and the judiciary, but not in private industry.
There is actually no country in the world in which ethnic groups are proportionately distributed in even the roughest degree in every industry or occupation. For various reasons unrelated to discrimination certain groups concentrate in different fields, usually benefiting society as a whole because of their specialisation.
It's all part of what happens in a free society. It's fascinating, for instance, that the American Supreme Court currently does not have a single Protestant judge. By contrast, the Manyi vision is that every sector, indeed every part of the country, would have the same racial mix.
Moving coloureds out of the Western Cape would no doubt also lead to ANC dominance there as well. Manyi does not see individual human beings, but only racial categories.
We clearly need to create equal opportunities for everyone, but we can't prescribe the outcome which will naturally vary immensely based on individual talents and will.
Do we expect, for instance, that all the various African ethnic groups will be proportionately represented everywhere? Is there a problem if Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho and Venda people find different economic niches?
Our national motto "Unity in diversity" shows the way forward. Let's stick to it.
Jack Bloom MPL is DA Leader in the Gauteng legislature. This article first appeared in The Citizen.
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