Labour minister, Membathisi Mdladlana, is disappointed about the slow pace of implementation of the EE act. Please see the report from BUANews.

He has a point. Pace of reform is still too slow. What he does not take into account is the complication of transformation, and the conflicting methods that government is still using to implement BEE. He makes the statement "If every company properly implemented the Employment Equity Act, or even moved further than what the law stipulates, it Act would eventually become redundant", and again I agree with him.

I could go further and state "If every state/government organisation properly implemented the Employment Equity Act, or even moved further than what the law stipulates, it Act would eventually become redundant". I'd say that government should walk the talk, and lead while business follows. This of course is not happening. The governments own PPPFA still talks about HDI's - historically disadvantaged individuals, and this included white females. If they have still not changed their own rules, how can they expect business to do better?

The employment equity act is intended to be consistent with the B-BBEE act and codes of good practice. This is still not happening properly. We still see government owned or associated enterprise going their own merry way in implementing their own flavour of BEE, without reference to the BEE codes of good practice. I'm referring to TELKOM and ESKOM amongst others.

Surely, Mr Minister you should be concerned that all of us work together to improve this country.