Many of us argue that the shares of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) are almost worth nothing or its dividends are a laughing stock. I want to advance a different argument that SARB carries the name of our country and is our national pride and ought to be owned by South Africans with blacks as majority shareholders.
My point of view is that, ownership is everything. Anyway, I should remind many that even if there is no monetary value, ownership itself is value and it is for the same reason why whites are holding on to these “valueless” shares of the SARB.
Whites understand that ownership gives authenticity and that which is authentic becomes superior.
There are three problems that I have identified in relation to the ownership of the SARB.
Firstly, the SARB is owned privately. Secondly, the ownership has foreigners. Thirdly, the ownership is white dominated. The private ownership of the SARB is problematic from a ideological, political and social perspective.
The issue of national pride kicks in and should be protected. The call for privatisation of the SARB is motivated by a full understanding that there is a need of transfer of an industry or commerce from private to state ownership or control. This need arises out of a history of exclusion whereby the citizens of our country were not active participants in the SARB and more so were watching through the window while a few board members or directors made decisions on behalf of the nation and in fact, continues to do so. The risk being that private shareholders and directors might not have the same ideological, political and social direction as the nation.
The private shareholders might not be directed or be dictated to by the mandate of the majority of citizens in a democratic system.
The wish and will of the majority might be disregarded by a few private shareholders posing as directors.
In fact, the SARB, as an entity of the nation, should be treated the same way as water, air and roads. They should not and cannot be owned by a private individual or entity.
Private ownership leads to or promotes private dominion and gives others exclusive rights over others and in this case over the economy and the citizens of this country.
The other problem is that the SARB is owned by foreigners. In this instance, we experience the control of business and natural resources in a country by foreign individuals and entities that do not belong to this country and who do not have the interests of this nation at heart.
There are several risks associated with foreign ownership.
In the SARB context, we might experience multinational companies and individuals using their power to influence government policies that may have an adverse impact on economic development.
In other instances, foreign ownership can increase the demand for products, thus leading to price increases.
The foreign owner has an interest in and is loyal to his or her nation. Patriotism cannot be undermined and ignored in commerce.
There could be an argument that the shareholders have seats on the board and that government also appoint directors from its side.
My response would be very simple: foreigners have no business with the SARB. Why would they want to have influence over a sovereign country and its economic policies?
On the last point, the ownership of the SARB is white-dominated. It is not a secret that white people and entities still hold a lion’s share in all forms of capital in South Africa.
Jessie Duarte, the deputy secretary general of the ANC argued this point last week that “the structure of our economy dictates that the same people who were there before 1990 are in fact the same people who have control and are in charge of the economy and we do not have an inclusive economy”.
What we need to understand as a fact is that racial identity and property are deeply interrelated.
Whiteness operates historically as property on the sideline of systems created to dominate blacks. The system created racially contingent forms of property and property rights to exclude blacks as owners, shareholders and directors while making whites the only owners and participants in the economy and allocating them societal benefits that blacks would not have access to. These prearrangements were sanctioned and legitimised in law.
And what we need to take into consideration is that, even after apartheid, whiteness continues to serve as a basis and barrier to protect entrenched power. Therefore, it is important that even the racial ownership of the SARB be confronted as it is not accidental but a design and legacy of apartheid.
The distributive justification and function of B-BBEE should be seen in action at the SARB as the fundamental and critical component of our South African economy that translates into a political tool and societal shaper.
* Senokoane is an associate professor at Unisa in the College of Human Sciences.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.