Connie Mulder: The Real Traitors - Transforming tax money into Maseratis for cadres…

The African National Congress’ (ANC’s) idea of transformation is transforming tax money into Maseratis for cadres. “It's not transforming anything else”. So says Connie Mulder, the Head of Solidarity's Research Institute, in this interview with Chris Steyn. “When you're talking about treasonous behaviour and unpatriotic behavior, I would much rather argue using the State coffers as your own personal piggy bank for more than a decade, as the ANC has done, is much more treasonous than trying desperately to salvage the relationship with our second biggest trade partner, which Solidarity has tried to do.” Mulder points out that even China has started applying pressure on the ANC's BEE policy “saying, you're deterring investment, you're making it difficult for us to come in and invest”. He outlines how Solidarity is using the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa to intensify lobbying. Giving an update on the saga of the removal of its banner that proclaims “Welcome to the most race regulated country in the world”, he confirms the City of Joburg has returned it at no cost. “And we put up 38 more billboards.” He also gives feedback on the ANC’s response to the documentary “Race to the Bottom”..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:02.218)Afrikaner civil rights organisations are using the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa to intensify lobbying for minority rights. I speak to Connie Mulder of the Solidarity Research Institute. Welcome, Connie.Connie Mulder (00:19.664)Welcome Chris, nice to be here.Chris Steyn (00:21.78)Thank you. Your banner: Welcome to the most race regulated country in the world”. What is the latest?Connie Mulder (00:30.478)Okay, so the latest state of the banner on the M1 is the City of Joburg has returned it to us at no cost. They didn't charge us anything for the inbounding or the removal. In fact, they asked us to come and remove it. And we are getting all our money back from the ad agency as well. So in other words, from our perspective, we're quite happy. This is what we wanted in our initial code documents. Just for viewers who don't know, is we put up a banner on the M1 that said Welcome to the most racially regulated country in the world, specifically because the G20 leaders would be passing by that road. And then there was an outcry, we'd be putting it mildly. The City of Joburg's officials moved with what can only be described as shocking efficiency - if you've been to Joburg in the last year - and removed the banner. Initially, they said, it's because the message is harmful and political. And then they went to, no, it's simply because the by-laws weren't adhere to.No, from our perspective, we’re not experts in auto advertising, we're a trade union. So we contacted an ad agency who facilitated this for us. From our perspective, everything that the ad agency asked us to comply with, we did. We sent them everything that they needed. They assured us that they complied with everything. But the City now has some issues at that point, but that's between the ad agency and the City. We need to also understand that it is...You could believe, and there are some people who actually believe it, that it's pure coincidence that in this one instance, the City actually implemented the by-laws. If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you in San Francisco. But from our perspective, we've got our banner back, we've got our money back, and we put up 38 more billboards …. with the same message to just drive home that Africa has an unsustainable racial dispensation currently, and that this needs to change.Chris Steyn (02:25.436)What other lobbying are you planning around the D20?Connie Mulder (02:30.797)So we've lobbied extensively beforehand as well. We've visited each embassy of the G20 nations and told them, listen, you are a signatory of the ILO, the International Labour Organisation's Convention, Triple One, as well as the ICER, the International Committee for the Elimination of All Racial Discrimination. And these two international bodies stipulate that if you are going to do something like racial discrimination for affirmative action, you need to use it in a more nuanced way, meaning you can't just look at skin colour. You have to look at needs, at income, at qualification levels, etc. Now South Africa does nothing regarding that. It's actually in flagrant contempt of the treaties that it signed. In terms of if you look at the June… quotas, it's only skin colour. There's not a lot else that matters. We gave each one of these a letter and said, we want you to just…tell South Africa to walk the walk, not just do what they actually signed. Then we've got the banners up and then we're obviously off to the G20 and we're going to ramp down the campaign. But further we are constantly, Jaco is in the Netherlands now as well and we've been in contact with the US as well, just to try and inform them of the situation on the ground saying, look, this is the reality of racial discrimination because the harsh reality is for a foreign investor, let's say you come with a G20, you're a businessman, if you want to open a company in South Africa, there's a very good chance that you're going to have to meet some sort of racial requirement, either as part of a licensing or if you were to employ more than 50 people. Suddenly you have to look at the skin colour of your workforce. So it's a reality that foreign investors will have to face at some point.And South Africa sort of, well, the government's answer is straight out of George Orwell's 1984, which said, no, there are no race laws in South Africa. That is, that's just pure blatant dishonesty. Obviously there are. But if you're a foreign investor, this is a reality that's going to hit you. And from our perspective, it's a reality that has hamstrung South Africa's economy significantly. We can see the damage that it does, not only to economic growth, but to foreign direct investment…Connie Mulder (04:52.383)…employment creation. If we look at these race-based policies, what they've realistically done is they've made life worse for all South African citizens except a very small connected elite. It is time for a serious review. From our perspective, we need to dramatically move away from skin colour and race as the only criterion and start using income and needs-based empowerment much more.Chris Steyn (05:18.058)So what has your lobbying achieved thus far?Connie Mulder (05:23.021)I think so. What does success look like is the question. So the first thing is we've got a long history of fighting against the race-based dispensation that the ANC was planning. It started with the Department of Correctional Services lawsuit way back in the 2000s and we've consistently been with the same message which says this is not going to solve the problem that you think it is. Meaning we've got a massive problem in South Africa, let's first state that. We've got a problem with poverty, we've got a problem with unemployment and we've got a problem with meaningful inequality and we need to address that as a country. So our perspective has never been don't do this, it's been do something else. This is not going to work, it's not going to solve this issue and unfortunately we've been proven right here. It has not. The needle has not moved on black unemployment, on all unemployment. It's gotten worse. South Africa has gotten poorer and inequality has broadened but in this case, in this case all the inequalities is now within the black group. That means, the face of poverty in South Africa is black, the face of wealth is also black these days, which means these policies have not achieved what they should have. They've actually achieved the exact opposite. What they have done is they've created a small connected elite. So from our perspective, what we want is to open this debate once again and to keep on pushing it into the public mind that we cannot have these policies that do not work on all measurable metrics except making some rich ANC cadre a bit richer. This is not something that we as a country can afford. We're in the emergency room, economically, economic wise, where we need to get the country growing, we need to make sure that we get everyone who wants to work should be able to actually be employed because as Ronald Reagan said, the best form of welfare is a job. It's simple as that. That's the best social programme you can get.We're a trade union, we're in the business of making sure people have jobs and that actually work. So the goal of the campaign is to... We've had several... I'd explain it, several very good discussions with ANC. It's always a very good discussion and then nothing changes. And that means, we're familiar with the opinion, nothing will change just due to good relations. You need to apply pressure. You need to apply massive pressure to the ANC to get them to do the right thing. We saw tangible evidence of this…Connie Mulder (07:46.439)…during the electricity crisis. Ultimately, had to apply massive pressure as civil society to get the ANC to do the right thing, which is to allow private generation, which they kicked against and vehemently stood against for almost a decade. We need to remember, for a decade we had the lights going off and the ANC just refusing to actually solve this problem. And this is part of that trying to apply massive pressure to the ANC specifically on their race-based policies which we think just don't work and are completely outdated and it's created, as we said, a small elite connected.… And if we can apply international pressure on this specific aspect, then we're of the opinion it's actually our duty to get as much pressure as we can at the ANC and open the debate once again in South Africa, where we've now had a debate about BEE. But thus far, the ANC has tried to sort of wriggle out of it by saying, it's just a funding problem. We need to add more money. It's the issue…it has led to some corruption, but not a lot. Let's see. We can't let them get away with that…the harsh reality is that their race-based policies have destroyed this country's economy. Simply put, it has destroyed and it has made all of us in the country - doesn’t matter what value it has made - all of us a lot poorer. And it has put South Africa on a trajectory, as we would say, on a race to the bottom…we’re not at the moment a winning country.And that is why we've consistently said for us to be a winning country, we need to start focusing on the scoreboard again and stop this obsession with the team photo, which the ANC has.Chris Steyn (09:24.274)The G20 countries, on how many can you count for support?Connie Mulder (09:31.695)….I think there's a couple, the United States most definitely has applied pressure on the ANC to change the racial laws that they have. The US would describe it as a non-tariff trade barrier for US companies, which it frankly is if you want to do business. We're seeing positive sounds out of some EU countries, but other countries...not necessarily….China has also started applying pressure on the ANC's BEE policy saying, you're deterring investment, you're making it difficult for us to come in and invest. I don't think Russia is going to be on our side quickly. They haven't communicated like that. What we've seen is you have a couple of vocal investors like Elon Musk, who's now obviously very vocal about, can't invest in this country due to race-based legislation.But for every vocal investor there's several more that just pass us by and go to Nigeria or Mauritius or some other African country, say they're going to spend my money there. And that means you need to focus on those guys and ensure that we tell the story of South Africa, which is we're a great place to invest if you ignore our horrible government. Actually we've got people who are friendly, we've got hard-working citizens, we've got people who want to work. Please come and invest here and you won't be disappointed. And unfortunately, thus far the ANC has done well, they've gone to great lengths to ensure that investors are disappointed when they come here or that they have to give away 30 or 50% of their company before they can actually invest. And that's just not, it's not the way that you should be doing it. And that's why when we say it's the most racially regulated country in the world. In August this year, we published a report that just did a simple estimate of what does a BEE cost the economy - and on a very conservative level it's about 3% of GDP per year. So that is a massive cost that we're paying for this policy. Now all public policies come with a cost. Usually it's a cost benefit analysis, meaning we pay for an army, for a defense force. It costs the taxpayer money, but there's a benefit, we're not going to be invaded and we're to protect our borders, the same with the police force. And we need to stop, drop the emotion and…Connie Mulder (11:58.167)…honestly evaluate this policy saying it has a massive cost to the economy. What are we getting for it? Are we getting what we want? And the answer unequivocally is no, we're getting very, very little for the massive cost that we're doing. If we dropped all of this…to needs-based, made sure that people of lower income brackets are actually empowered, or we go for an age-based and say, look, everyone below 35 is now designated group, then suddenly we're going to start seeing much more economic growth because you're removing burdens of compliance from companies and they can then start investing in the economy more. And if we can get South Africa's growth to three or four percent, suddenly a lot of our problems start disappearing. So that means that the focus should not be on redistributing the existing and shrinking pie. It should be almost obsessively on how do we grow this economy? And what we're seeing from the ANC for the last 20 years is there's no real communication or any seriousness with growing the economy. There's a lot of seriousness with making sure that they redistribute the economy or as they would say, transform it. But the ANC's idea of transformation is transforming tax money into Maseratis for cadres. It's not transforming anything else. And that is what we've seen happen. So no, we need to focus on growth…We’ve repeatedly stated we need to make sure that we grow. And it's not rocket surgery. We've got several examples internationally how you can get an economy to grow. It starts with the government getting out of the way of the private sector and we've just not seen any movement there. So if we can apply pressure internationally, domestically, we can to ensure growth. Yes, it's going to benefit our members obviously, but as we've said with all of our US relations, etc. Yes, we go on behalf of our members but in the interest of the whole country. The things that we ask aren't things that are going to be the detriment of our countrymen. We're part of this country. As we said before, we love this country. We just really don't like the government.Chris Steyn (14:04.074)Our foreign minister, Roland Lamola, has accused US President Donald Trump of pursuing an agenda of White Supremacism in its criteria for South African refugees.Connie Mulder (14:19.118)Yes. the United States is the biggest economy in the world and whether you like Donald Trump or not, is an acquired taste. I don't think there's anybody who's on the fence about Mr. Trump. You either love him or you hate him. He's still the democratically legally elected president of the most powerful country in the world, which means you need to maintain relations with with this economy. It's the second biggest trading partner for South Africa. And you don't necessarily need to go do all hugs and kisses and be best buds and play golf together, but you at least need to not antagonise them further. That's diplomacy 101. Don't poke the bear more if you want to. South Africa seems to have forgotten this lesson. We first had Mr. Rasool calling Donald Trump a White Supremasist, which got him expelled from the US. Now we've got our Minister of International Relations calling Donald Trump a White Supremacist. That all that means is whatever trade deal was supposedly on the cards is most likely not near completion. And that says something for the rest of us…is the ANC has been lying to us about the progress that they've made for nine months…nothing is close to finalisation and it is going to be further away from actually getting signatories on a paper.The irony is without a bilateral trade agreement, we're looking at severe economic damage to our automotive sector and several other exporters that export specifically to the US. It's easy for a government bureaucrat to say just diversify out of the US. You can't easily diversify out of three contracts that you've necessarily planned for. You can't diversify out of the biggest economy in the world. And if you think it's going to be easy to do...replace US demand because …the thing is everyone wants to export to the US and Trump has figured that out. That's why he's using the tariffs as a political tool.It's just not necessary from our perspective. It's such a pity. We needn't be in this extremely antagonistic relationship with the United States as a country. But the ANC has gone to great lengths to ensure that the US is our enemy. And now that they've succeeded, they're sort of flabbergasted by how did this happen?Connie Mulder (16:40.239)Even under democratic presidents, the US has sort of taken a stance of are you friend or foe? We're not quite sure. If you remember under Biden, the Congress adopted a bill that said the president has the order, they gave him an order to investigate South Africa as a friend or a foe. And ultimately Trump now has done it in a slightly different way than you would think Mr. Biden would. But the United States is quite simply fed up with South Africa, fed up with the way we've been handling them. And this does not bode well for the average South African worker. And that is, think, where our worry lies. Yes, it affects our members, but it affects everyone who touches an industry that exports to the biggest economy in the world. And it boggles the mind as to why you would choose as a government repeatedly to keep on kicking the United States in the teeth rather than try and smooth over relations and somehow get to a point where we don't have to like one another, but we can at least trade with one another. And that is…the United States has several of these relationships. They've done it with China. They've done it with other countries. They've moved from you have to completely align with what we're saying to just, all right, let's have a trade agreement. But for that to happen, you need to stop kicking them in the teeth and poking them in the eye and actually start engaging with what they've put forward.Chris Steyn (18:02.858)Surely, Lamola must have known when he made those statements, his latest statements, that it could derail what's on the table.Connie Mulder (18:12.111)I'm not sure. I hope. It's one of two scenarios. It's the same as with blaming Solidarity and AfriForum for the deterioration in relations. Both of those scenarios are bad for the government. If it's true, then that means four guys and a selfie stick outmaneuvered the whole DIRCO, which is massive embarrassment for the South African government. If it's false, then that means that DIRCO has imploded and they simply don't have the capability to do any diplomatic...work anymore. I think it's more the latter. And unfortunately, I suspect that Mr. Lamola just does not care for the simple reason… 30% tariffs has not hit the ANC in the pocket, they haven't felt it. It's us who are …paying the price. It's not them. That means they're under the impression that South Africa can very successfully with very little pain continue without the US. And that's why they're suddenly starting to ask all of us to be extremely patriotic. And now we need to not embarrass them, etc. But in the words of Helen Suzman who asked the MP ministers some weird questions or embarrassing questions about Apartheid in her previous dispensation and then the MP minister said, Mrs Suzman, your questions are embarrassing the country and the answer was no Sir, it's your answers - and I think that's exactly the same with ANC. It's not, we're not the ones embarrassing the country, your actions are embarrassing the country, we're just shining a light on what you're actually doing.And that is the main issue now from our perspective that creates massive issues, but we are all trying to salvage what we can. We've been consistently on record for the last five years trying to salvage AGOA. When I remember we sent some data to the Congressional Committee on AGOA and they thanked us because they were asking the DTI for this data for almost seven years and they got nothing. And ultimately we were the ones who defended South Africa and kept us in AGOA for another year.It's truly astounding, then at the same time, do remember, these are the same guys who plundered Eskom, who now looted Tembisa. Now, if you start stealing from poor, people, then nothing is sacred, and they've done very little. Almost no one mentioned in the Zondo report is currently awaiting trial or in prison, which should have happened almost instantly.Connie Mulder (20:32.473)When you're talking about treasonous behaviour and unpatriotic behaviour, would much rather argue using the state coffers as your own personal piggy bank for more than a decade, as the ANC has done, is much more treasonous than trying desperately to salvage the relationship with our second biggest trade partner, which Solidarity has tried to do.Chris Steyn (20:53.342)What response have you had to your documentary, Race to the Bottom?Connie Mulder (20:58.351)Thus far the response has been either welcoming from people or the ANC has responded in the typical manner that we would expect, which is 1984 pretty much saying, no, well, they have no idea what this documentary is about. There are no race regulations in Africa. Now this is an astounding position to take. I remember reading that tweet and then on my desk at that moment I had printed out the sectoral targets for employment equity in June. And you would look at that and go, am I imagining things? How is this possible? That's their actual position. So they've just denied that this happens. And when that fails, then they go to the tried and trusted, we're yearning for Apartheid, we desperately want to not have black people in the labour market. All of these completely baseless accusations, which I don't even know if it's worth it to answer that. But for the simple reason we've repeatedly stated as well is we're really not yearning for a past of the National Party, but we're also not too excited for a future under the ANC. And that means from our perspective, we're very realistic with what is wrong with the country, what needs to change, what needs to go where. And race-based legislation is one of the things that simply don't have a place in Africa anymore. We absolutely have to do something about poverty. We have to do something about unemployment. But these policies have now shown that they've not done anything in that regard. And in fact, if we get to a situation where you're arguing as a government that it is absolutely imperative that we need to discriminate against white unemployed youth to redress a situation, then we've lost the plot. And that is where South Africa is regarding race-based legislation. I think people tend to forget the absurdity that we live on on a day-to-day basis, meaning we've recently had a provincial cricket team being kicked out of a final because they used the wrong colour black bowler. Literally they used a coloured bowler rather than a black African bowler and that meant they didn't meet the demographics and we kicked them out of a final. We had a netball team, the Mpumalanga Sunbirds, kicked out of the Telkom Final as well because they had too many black players on the field for a quarter. We have a situation with, let's see, one of our members worked at Sasol and he got … in the BEE scheme because he's Indian.Connie Mulder (23:24.193)And then he asked him, he wants to bequeath these shares to his sons when he dies. So he wants to write them into his will. And they told him, no, you can't do that. For the simple reason, you married a white woman. And that means your sons will dilute the black shareholding if they should own it. Now, when we're at a point where the government starts telling you who you can give your property to based on their race, where they start deciding what you do when we start kicking sports teams out of finals because the team photo looked wrong, not the scoreboard, then we need to take a step back and go, all right, we've lost the plot regarding this, we've lost the plot regarding unemployment, we've lost the plot regarding economic growth, and we need to reconsider and start from scratch as to how do we do this. And that's the goal of the documentary. Obviously, the people who are benefiting from this race dispensation currently would not like that to happen because they're eating well, quite simply put. But for the rest of us, it is time to put the maximum pressure that we can on this government and to get them to say, let's revisit, let's do something else. We can't continue along this line.Chris Steyn (24:36.778)Thank you. That was Connie Mulder, head of Solidarity Research Institute, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you.

Connie Mulder: The Real Traitors - Transforming tax money into Maseratis for cadres…

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