FF Plus has for a long time already been heading minorities' struggle against discrimination and affirmative action
Public opposition to affirmative action is busy gaining momentum and the FF Plus, which has fought a political struggle alone against this discriminatory policy, will reach out to minorities who are increasingly taking on the ANC government, Dr. Corné Mulder, the FF Plus leader in the Western Cape says.
Dr. Mulder says there is, especially in the brown community, great dissatisfaction at present about the government's concept regulations about affirmative action. A strongly worded petition against affirmative action is currently being circulated for signatures at churches, parties and cultural organisations countrywide.
Community leaders such as Peter Marais is actively involved in the struggle against what is being called reversed racism and the marginalisation of minorities, especially in the Western Cape where brown and white people are already getting the short end of the stick with the application of national demographics in the workplace.
Adding to this, a group with the name Concerned Citizens of South Africa will be holding an Open Day this forthcoming Friday at the Jack Muller Park in Bellville with the theme Human Rights and the Rights of Minorities. Various well-known people will be talking about the subject and the FF Plus will also be there.
Everybody is invited to the day which will offer entertainment for young and old in the form of food stalls, water-slides, jumping castles, a variety of animals, veteran motors and much more.
According to Dr. Mulder, the FF Plus will actively link with activities which promote the case of minorities and will therefore also support the current petition against the revised regulations in terms of the Employment Equity Act, 47 of 2013, which was published on the 17th February this year by Minister Mildred Oliphant.
The regulations are contrary to the court case which employees of the Western Cape Department of Corrections had won last year after the department had applied the national demographics in the promotion of officials.
Regarding brown people, the effect of the new regulations will have the biggest impact in the Western and Northern Cape. Brown people who make up 9% of the national population figures will therefore only be considered for 9% of all the top positions at companies with more than 150 workers while they make up 49,6% of the residents of the Western Cape.
Peter Marais, the former Western Cape premier and deputy chairperson of the Brown Empowerment Movement (BEM), said the aggrieved people wants the issue to be put on the agenda of the United Nations' committee on racial discrimination.
Marais says the regulations discriminate against indigenous groups who according to the UN should enjoy ‘first nation status' with the necessary recognition of their rights.
According to Dr. Mulder, the importance of the minorities' voice about the issue is clearly seen from the fact that Marius Fransman, the ANC Western Cape leader, had expressed himself in opposition to his own party's policy in an attempt to appease the brown voters in the province. The Western Cape's DA government will also be obtaining a legal opinion about the constitutionality of the regulations about employment equity.
"Whether minorities will at this stage accept the honesty of the ANC's and DA's motives still has to be seen.
"In contrast, the FF Plus' policy on affirmative action is well-known. The FF Plus had already in November last year pointed out that the DA enforces affirmative action itself with the appointments in the Western Cape.
"In a reply to a question in parliament of the FF Plus it came to light that appointments in the province are being done according to a quota system. With regard to white employees' figures alone, the figure was 4% lower than the national demographics and the black figure was 4% higher.
"The FF Plus has consistently opposed legislation which has race as its basis. We are not doing it now for dubious reasons. The dissatisfaction is busy gaining momentum and the FF Plus will continue, together with others, to take the lead in the struggle against discrimination," Dr. Mulder says.
Statement issued by Dr. Corné Mulder, FF Plus provincial leader: Western Cape, March 18 2014
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