LETTER: Cancer of extortion

The ubiquitous so-called construction mafias were created by the ANC’s racial manipulation (“SA’s extortion mafias spread their tentacles into new sectors”, August 26). The ANC has an obsessive love of racial quotas and all forms of contracts.
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These disruptive breaches of government contracts have, not surprisingly, fueled a “free lunch” attitude among opportunistic and well-organized gangsters. What else could we expect?

If a large part of a government contract is to go to local companies, gangsters simply pounce and intervene before the bickering ANC structures have decided which cadre gets the 30% or so benefit. And of course the gangsters make little distinction between public and private contracts.

The ANC would shed bitter tears, but the way to begin to cauterize this cancer of extortion is to abandon the whole catastrophe of set-asides and racial preference. In other words, abandon BEE.

There would be an added benefit: our strangled economy would finally be able to grow at its 5% potential again.

Willem Cronje
Cape Town

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