In its latest ANC Today newsletter, the African National Congress (ANC) described the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act as: “a catalytic policy born of South Africa’s moral duty to ensure that political freedom is matched by economic justice.”

The party said: “B-BBEE seeks to broaden participation in the economy, shift ownership patterns, and affirm that democracy is hollow if economic apartheid remains untouched.”

The statement argued that the policy remains central to redressing South Africa’s racially skewed economic structure, linking empowerment to the broader struggle for equality that followed the end of apartheid.

However, the ANC said the policy: “has come under constant and renewed attack by apartheid apologists and conservative forces such as the Democratic Alliance (DA) and their right-wing counterparts in AfriForum and Solidariteit.”

“The DA’s stance exposes its enduring hostility to transformation, its nostalgia for minority privilege, and its laissez-faire comfort in the face of deep structural inequality,” the newsletter said.

Despite the strongly worded opposition to the DA’s proposal that poverty and value for money should underpin empowerment policy, The Common Sense is aware that several ANC strategists have privately reached similar conclusions. They believe that BEE, as practised over the past two decades, has contributed significantly to South Africa’s weak economic performance and by extension, to the party’s loss of support in the 2024 election.

Last week both Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC’s chief spokesperson said the party was willing to talk to the DA about its proposed alternative to BEE policy.