The FF Plus has decided to take firm action against the Gauteng government after the recent racist statements toward white and Indian people made by Faith Mazibuko, MEC for Arts, Culture, Sport and Recreation. She was recorded when she lashed out at white and Indian staff members of her Department in a racist rant on the 15th of February.
On 15 March 2019, the FF Plus lodged a complaint against the Gauteng government and all its departments with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and also submitted an application in terms of PAIA (Promotion of Access to Information Act).
The FF Plus is convinced that the words uttered by Mazibuko came from her heart and offer a true reflection of the malpractices associated with Affirmative Action (AA), which is a common occurrence in the public service and in particular the Gauteng government.
The FF Plus has heard many rumours of how the CV’s of people from minority groups are just thrown away and are never even taken into consideration for vacant positions. If people knew what was really going on in some human resource departments, their hair would stand on end. We now want to determine the true extent of the discrimination against minorities.
In light of these events, the FF Plus requested the HRC to investigate every department in the Gauteng provincial government’s Affirmative Action policy and its implementation thereof in practice in order to determine to what extent it deviates from the findings regarding how AA should be implemented, as contained in the HRC’s 2017/18 equality report.
The HRC report found that AA is being incorrectly implemented in South Africa and that more emphasis should be placed on socio economic circumstances rather than on race. That means Mazibuko’s statements are indicative of racism with the application of AA and the HRC must expose this.
Furthermore, the FF Plus wants to find out, by means of the PAIA application, what each department’s AA plan is, how they apply it in practice, what their internal processes are, how CV’s are handled, where and in which languages vacant positions are advertised as well as all internal communication regarding appointments made in 2018 to date, including emails between staff members.
Answers to parliamentary questions posed by the FF Plus concerning the race profile of employees in the public service indicated that minorities are under-represented. Thus, the FF Plus will put pressure on the Gauteng government to employ more people from minority groups.
The blatant discrimination against white, coloured and Indian people once again goes to show that the ANC in Gauteng must be replaced by a coalition government.
Should the FF Plus be part of such a coalition government, the party would make sure that merit is the main criterion for appointments and that racial discrimination is brought to an end; even if the coalition government has to go so far as to take the national government to court about it. The FF Plus will keep fighting back against unfairness.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Adv Anton Alberts on FF Plus
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