Lamberti on Sakeliga/Neasa interdicting employee race quotas: An attempt to head off more ANC lunacy

The pot-boiling strategy of destructive ANC economic policies is typified in its approach to employment equity, a quota-based employment system that SA businesses are obliged to implement from September. Sakeliga executive director Russell Lamberti explains why his organisation and Neasa are approaching the courts to block the ANC’s most granular racial policy yet attempted. He spoke to BizNews editor Alec Hogg.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.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..Watch here.Listen here.BizNews Reporter.A new front has opened in South Africa’s battle over economic freedom and constitutional rights. Russell Lamberti, Chief Economist at Sakeliga, has partnered with the National Employers Association of South Africa (NEASA) to challenge the government’s controversial new Employment Equity regulations. Their legal team filed an urgent interdict to halt the implementation of these regulations set to kick in on 1 September.These new laws require companies to meet explicit racial, gender and disability quotas in their staffing. Lamberti says the measures are extreme, unrealistic, and threaten to paralyse already fragile businesses.“This is not just about hiring,” he said in a BizNews interview with Alec Hogg. “It’s about forcing businesses to operate off a racial spreadsheet. You will be required to bean count the race and gender of every employee. That is not how hiring works in the real world.”The legal challenge argues the regulations are unconstitutional and economically damaging. If the interdict fails, companies may spend millions on compliance only for the courts to overturn the law months later.“The cost is irreparable,” Lamberti warned. “Why force businesses to comply with something that may be deemed unlawful next year?”The bigger pattern behind the policyLamberti believes these hiring quotas are just one part of a broader trend. What he calls the “third wave” of Black Economic Empowerment is now targeting private business-to-business relationships.“It’s no longer about tender deals with the state,” he said. “Now it’s about telling private companies who they may or may not trade with. This is creeping authoritarianism.”This regulatory overreach, according to Sakeliga, undermines job creation and puts the entire economy at risk. South Africa already has one of the world’s most rigid labour markets. Adding layer upon layer of demographic rules only worsens the crisis.“This hurts everyone,” he said. “Not just employers or shareholders but workers and especially the unemployed. These policies make job creation even harder.”A strategy of principled resistanceLamberti is not calling for reckless defiance. Instead, he promotes what he terms ethical non-compliance.“Do not rush to comply. Wait for the court ruling. Do not hand the state a victory through premature cooperation.”He warns against small companies claiming BEE exemptions once they pass the ten million rand turnover threshold.“The moment you invoke that exemption, you’re in the game,” he said. “And once you’re in, the rules change. They always get tighter.”Lamberti encourages small businesses to plan ahead and reduce dependency on contracts that require BEE scores. This could include targeting export markets or building new customer networks.“Ask yourself what you can do this year to reduce your dependency. Then do it again next year. Over five years, you can build resilience.”Legal victories show a path forwardSakeliga already has a strong track record in court. In 2022, the organisation successfully overturned harmful procurement regulations introduced by then-Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. That ruling saved municipalities hundreds of millions of rand.Now, the stakes are even higher.“These employment equity quotas are a precedent. If we don’t stop them, it opens the door to even more intrusive control.”Lamberti is urging business owners to support legal action. Not just Sakeliga’s case, but any credible effort to push back using constitutional tools.Decentralisation or departureOn the broader future of South Africa, Lamberti is blunt. Emigration remains an escape route, and many have already taken it. But for those staying, a new type of independence is taking shape.“There’s an independence movement growing,” he said. “Not necessarily Cape secession, but a deeper break from dependence on the state. People are setting up independent energy, private security, alternative schools and health care.”While formal secession faces high political hurdles, Lamberti believes the current trend points to informal autonomy.“It starts in the mind,” he said. “And it’s already happening. People want to build lives that are not dictated by a failing state.”He believes pressure for decentralised governance will grow as centralised policies become more hostile to economic freedom.“The more people are punished for creating value, the more they will find ways to unplug from the system. And in time, that may take political form.”What now for businessThe message from Sakeliga is clear. There are no silver bullets. No short cuts. But there are ways to resist constructively.“Litigate. Delay. Push back. Don’t rush to comply,” Lamberti said. “Support groups like NEASA and Sakeliga. Find alternative markets. Reduce reliance on those enforcing these harmful policies.”Most importantly, he argues, businesses must reclaim their moral clarity.“This is not just about profits. It’s about the future of South African enterprise. We either bend the knee or we stand up. There is no middle path left.”

Lamberti on Sakeliga/Neasa interdicting employee race quotas: An attempt to head off more ANC lunacy

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