Black Identity

Through history, it has always been interesting to observe the role Afrikans have played in differentiating themselves from the rest of the world. This viewed from the perspective of governance, religion, economics and science.

While it may be interesting to study these, my intention is not to cover them here. I simply refer to them as references to make a point. My interest is the observation of the economic participation of the Afrikan people in South Afrika.

When I grew up, I got accustomed to black business in the form of general dealerships, taverns, beauty salons and the informal business. And the level of wealth creation was placed in that respective order. Informal business was used as a means to place food on the table and send children to school. It was also a means of progressing to other higher forms of business. Beauty salons were a somewhat specialised form of business, which thrived on the back of Afrikan women's obsession with beauty and particularly the race to mimick the Afrikan Americans in look. Selling alcohol was highly regulated, but this form of business thrived the most of all black forms of business. But it was a highly cyclical business in that it was almost certain that every liquior outlet will one day falter and close down.

General dealerships were the hallmark of business acumen. People went into business without any form of training or support. And the majority of these businesses stood the test of time until shortly after the 1994 elections. The majority of black millionaires we have today have their roots in running these kind of businesses.

Of course we had the somewhat not so visible business of renting out properties. This is mostly known as back-room dwelling. A few people practiced this form of business at a professional level where these properties were properly managed and well taken care of. And for those who did, big rewards were reaped.

Very few professional type businesses existed in those days. They were so rare that the existance of Black Like Me by ntate Herman Mashaba was the pride of all black people. Black Like Me became the hallmark of strength and the epitomy of success. The likes of Sizwe Ntsaluba, Kunene Brothers.

Until the dawn of democracy in South Afrika. The new government brought with it the mobilisation of white business into black areas. National and multi national companies entered the black areas and the playing field was no longer level for the small black businesses. They had no scale with which white businesses operated. Overnight, all black businesses in our areas went bankrupt. Just like that.

The only forms of black business remaining are taverns, which are no longer profitable as young people buy alcohol in white areas. Some beauty salons continue to do well, but the majority are just breaking even and therefore not sustainable. Informal trading remain the widest form of black business due to high unemployment levels. But informal trading of today is vastly different to that of the past. Informal trading used to be profitable.

The majority of black people are trying hard to break into the professional services business. Having worked for many years and highly educated, they had hoped to make a mark in that sphere. Unfortunately this space is dominated by multinationals too. Only a few black businesses are growing to sustainable levels. Many are forced back into employment after years of trying unsuccessfully to make a success of their businesses.

It seems the only form of business that may be termed black that has done somewhat well today is empowerment companies. But I cannot regard empowerment companies as black as the measure of the blackness of the business is its origins. Most of these empowered companies are white companies who have sold a shareholding to prominent black people. As a result, these businesses have absolutely nothing to do with the black economy. The one distinguishing factor about black business is that they operate mainly in black areas and therefore directly benefit the economies of the black society. As things stand today, I am not aware of any empowerment company that directly benefits the black society. This unfortunately includes the investment arms of labour federations whose return are meangful to the office bearers who earn large packages.

The unfortuante matter of equity. The present government is unfortunately focused on equity in companies than assisting black entrepreneurs starting their own businesses. Equity is the falacy of economic prosperity in the eyes of the intellectuals. A 20% stake in a national company by a few prominent black people will never translate into economic participation of the majority. Neither will the benefits of that stake accrue meaningfully to the people. Equity equals individual wealth. This is why all black areas remain hugely underdeveloped because all economic activity happens outside of our areas. White business operating from black areas is only reaping the rewards of patronage while they do absolutely nothing to invest in these areas.

So what is left to be regarded as legitimate black business? All things considered, I am inclined to proclaim there is no black business niche market today. The majority of black people are mostly replicating white business in black areas without much attention to the needs of black society. Even traditional black niche markets such as art, craft and creative work are today fronted by white business, with black people the suppliers to white business. But these artifacts are generally only available from white owned stores who charge extremely high prices for the end product.

The arts. Black people are thriving in the entertainment industry as artists of different forms. Mostly working as music composers, singers, dancers and stage actors. This is probably the only form of industry dominated by black people. The problem though is that even though they own entertainment; distribution, marketing and production is still largely owned by white business. The bulk of the revenues made in entertainment goes to distribution companies, and this where the industry is largely white owned. Black people end up with generally up to 20% of royalties, while the rest of the profits go to white companies. Theatres too are owned by white companies.

What about publishing? Many black people are excellent writers of fiction and non fiction work. As with the rest of other industries, they do not own the whole value chain. There are very few black publishing companies in South Afrika. It is even worse that book shops are white owned. Only a select few black owned book stores remain in business. The majority of book stores are chain stores owned by public companies.

Public transport. Perhaps the only true black owned and controlled business in South Afrika is the taxi industry. Since it's introduction in the early 1900s, the taxi industry has always been in the hands of black entrepreneurs. To this day, it remains truly the pride of black business by ownership and contribution to the black economy. Set aside a few governance issues, this is one of the industries that has produced black millionaires. My only wish was for the government to assist in formalising the business. The taxi recapitilisation programme is an unfortunate programme by the goverment that has been badly planned and horribly implemented. This is a programme that renders some taxi owners out of business. You cannot scrap all taxis, irrespective of their book value, and only give a R50,000 subsidy per taxi scrapped. The cost of the old taxi was about R150,000 while the new taxis costs around R273,000. This leaves the taxi owners with a liability of R223,000 after the implementation of this programme. Who is supposed to cover the difference? What about the insurance costs? And people expect the taxi industry to just accept the R50,000 and move on. This is illegal and immoral in my opinion.