Opinion B-BBEE proves that when one black person prospers, others do not necessarily benefit by proxy Rand for rand, black South African households today make less than they did relative to white South African households in 1996 BL PREMIUM

The National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Nasa) defines a black hole as "a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out". There couldn’t be a more fitting description for broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE); a policy that has absorbed significant resources — financial and nonfinancial — and which remains a dark area in terms of policy evaluation. B-BBEE, like its predecessor BEE, still takes and takes, diverting time and money from real black economic empowerment and funnelling it into narrow enrichment. The purpose of B-BBEE policy is to achieve the economic inclusion of black people into the economy. For such a goal, bottom-line indicators should surely include poverty, unemployment, income and net assets. Yet the effects of B-BBEE on those indicators are nearly nonexistent. In fact, very little credible evaluation of the effect of B-BBEE in overcoming broad economic exclusion is in the public domain. A World Bank report titled Overcoming ...