South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was under fire for appointing a white man as the head of the country’s largest state-owned company, is now appears to be on a damage control. In a meeting held recently in Edinburg, he implored private businesses to do affirmative action by recruiting more black people on their rolls and to give them meaningful role in the economy. The legacy of apartheid should be done away with such affirmative actions, he stressed.
Cyril Ramaphosa lamented that the private business to do some soul searching as to why they are still behind in recruiting black people and at the same, time, he pointed out that considerable progress has been made by the public sector, , in carrying out affirmative action in South Africa.
It may be recalled that the South Africa government recently roped in Andre de Ruyter as chief executive officer of Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, the debt-stricken power utility, which is being resisted by the two trade unions in the country. According to the unions, it was a deliberate decisions by the government to diminish the role of Africans in the running of the company. The common grouse of the trade unions in particular and black population in general is that the white population, which constitutes only 5% of the population, is gobbling up most of the plum jobs in the country. Africans constitute 79% of the population and has only 15% share of the top management.
