National government departments and parastatals still lag far behind provincial and local government in employment equity, according to ‘The South Africa Survey 2016’, released by the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) this month.
Relying on data from the Commission for Employment Equity, the IRR found that only 54.9% of top managers in national government were black-African (and 59.4% in parastatals) compared to 73.8% at provincial government level and 75.7% at local government level.
The reason why national government fails to achieve the same demographic outcomes as local and provincial government was not immediately clear, with IRR analyst Gabriela Mackay commenting: “Despite the often impassioned arguments of national government leaders about the need for all aspects of South African life to achieve full demographic representation, it is apparent that national government is itself falling short of this outcome.”
IRR CEO Dr Frans Cronjé added that the data was “astonishing” considering the government’s repeated insistence on the need for racial targets in every area of public life.
“Perhaps it is a positive sign that the government is losing faith in its own policies and may in time be open to reforms that place the economic good of the country above the current crippling obsession with meeting racial targets that have often been enforced at the expense of the economy and the best interests of South Africa’s people,” said Cronjé.
