Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-11

MR KONGWANE: Mr Chairman, Members of the Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen.  With  the  advent of a new democratic elected government on the 27th April 1994, our country has attempted to come to terms with its bitter past and strive to meet the challenges that face us currently to make a better life for all.  None of us want to make a return to that past.  As an organisation that has spent nearly sixty years, striving for the rights of the black business community, Nafcoc and it's members and it's membership are represented here today to share with you the truth as we know it.  Some statements may offend those who sincerely believe that they played no part in the perpetration of the great apartheid plan which attempted to stifle development of the black business community and in turn, Nafcoc itself.
 Our coming to terms with this past is therefore a form of reconciliation that strengthens us as a business community to go forward and seek ways that ensure our sustainability to the future.  In addressing the key focus, area that relate to the role of business during the period March 1960 to May 1994, we will cover the following aspects:
 One, the role of the past government in the stifling of black business development and its total onslaught strategy. 
 Two, the role of the white business sector in colluding with the past government in this respect and furthering their own interest.  And three,  the role of organised white business.  But Mr Chairman allow me to give you a history and overview of Nafcoc.
 Nafcoc first started out as a group of traders coming together in 1945 under the banner of the 'Orlando's Traders Association'.  The government at the time was that of General JC Smuts, who was Prime Minister from 1939 to 1948.  Smuts so-called enlightened reign did nothing for the lot of black business, resulting in the formation of the Orlando Trading Association, abbreviated OTA,  to champion the cause of the black trader during that period.  The ascent of the National  Party to power in 1948 and their various regimes in the following years, differed only in the severity of the controls imposed on the black business community.  Later policies and crack-downs, flowing from Dr DF Malan, 1948 to 1954, Mr JG Strijdom from 1954 to 1958, Mr HF Verwoerd, Dr HF Verwoerd from 1958 to 1966.  DJ Vorster, 1967 to 1978, PW Botha, 1978 to 1989 and FW De Klerk, 1989 to 1994.  All National Party Prime Ministers and or State Presidents, never gave the black entrepreneur an opportunity to realise his or her potential.  Although the laws which restricted black entrepreneurs and identified by tension grabbing headlines, such as,
 "Beware of natives, employed", 
 "No trade in urban areas", 
 "Go back to your homelands", 
 "No expansion", 
 "No partnerships", 
 "No black and white  relationships", 
 "One man one (word unclear)", and  
 "reverse the monies into the cities".
were passed during  National Party rule.  Black traders opposed many of these laws, with fluctuating degrees of militancy.  
 Our early traders saw the danger signals when the National Party came to power and the struggle for economic freedom had risen to a new level.  The OTA persuaded people in the townships, to keep (unclear) in the townships and to mobilise the black business community to counter this new onslaught.  Old stalwarts and early pioneers of this struggle were people like the late SJJ Lesolango(?), the late JCP Mazimbela(?), the late AM Gadi(?), (name unclear), the late J Mofokeng, Sam Mofanyane, Richard Maponye, PJ Gumede, (name unclear) and others, caught up in the greater struggle of the liberation of the people, they asserted.  The businessmen, who lead in the liberation of the black man, the black man's liberation lies in his economic liberation.  
 These early struggles created a necessity for a national organisation as battles for economic and political freedom had to be launched all over the country.  We looked forward to the day when we would participate fully in the economy.  The establishment s o read when blacks suddenly awakened and took up the trading challenge.  The governments law making machinery moved into action churning out destructive laws that hung over blacks,, like the sword of democracy.  The followers of black trade in this country, do not mince their words when they reflect on those lean and mean days and relate how they were not a bed of bright roses but a red hide, that churning battle field.  The authorities kept telling them
"You cannot expand in the urban areas, go to your homelands."
The response was a big and bold
"No, sir, this is our land, we are here to stay."
And while officialdom was crowding them to a point of suffocation, the early traders saw the danger light flicking from afar.  It was time for action, meaningful action.  A protractive struggle for economic freedom had begun at that time.
 They had to mobilise themselves, galvanise their forces and lay out strategies to rally against a serious situation that was threatening them.  
 Firstly, they had to unify themselves for unification of individual traders would be their first available weapon for combat.   Secondly, they had to persuade black people in the townships to buy black and keep cash in the townships, thus heightening the conscious.  Caught in the midst of a difficult world of beaurocratic red tape, they had to fight to rise from under the shackles of a racial system of oppression and domination to restore national pride.  Needles to say, they had to work their knuckles off to place a meal on the table.  Multi-discriminatory laws confronted the early black traders.  These discriminatory laws and stumbling blocks impeded their efforts to acquire the skills, aptitudes and capital they so needed to prosper in a business environment dominated by whites.  This inhibited their spirit of enterprise and helped them instil a deep-rooted distrust of the freemarket system.
 There has never been a shortage of business talent among blacks and yet during these first decades there was no place for the black trader above the level of seven forms of economic development in South Africa.  The wheels of racial  domination and discrimination  were forever spinning, crushing, disrupting and destabilising any attempts at expansion of black business.  Obviously those early traders had a fervour desire to spread their tentacles and above all breath the fresh air of economic freedom.  While organising themselves and banking on their buying power of blacks in the township as their only bargaining power, the traders were also locked in a dispute for land against the authorities.  
 The dispute over land ownership rights of blacks in the country which also affected their potential involvement in the agricultural industry has remained a sensitive political bone of contention since the founding of the Union of South Africa and the subsequent passing of the 1913 and 1936 Land Act which had declared eighty six percent of the country white owned and only thirteen percent owned by blacks.  During the one, during one of his many campaigns, addresses Doctor Mpanyane (?) had said,
" As long as the situation of restricted black land ownership remains, it is quite obvious that blacks can never have a fair and reputable share in the wealth of the economy".
Against the background of existing policy restraints, that confined the black majority in South Africa, the thirteen percent of the country, they morality and rationale underlying the free market system in the country could never be made acceptable to blacks.  Doctor Mpanyane and his friends kept urging the government to scrap  these outdated land acts that stood in sharp contrast to expressed government intentions to create a climate of racial harmony.  Time and again, Doctor Mpanyane and his colleagues kept telling the government that the main obstacles that hampered progress towards a more judicial and productive system of land distribution and utilisation in the black areas were not only political but were also deeply inbedded , embodied in the culture of the people. In those early days, Mr (name unclear), president of the OTA, used to relate how whites were doing everything possible to retain the lucrative market created by black people.  An example, of their fight for this market was that of Mr MJ Hammond, one of the Transvaal Business White organisers when he warned members of the amalgamated society of (unclear) workers in his report.  And he said and I quote:
"Beware of the natives in trade".
He appealed to members to open their eyes and see what was going on around them and ask them to help fight the danger of the native taking away their trade.  According to him, black trade belonged to white traders and not blacks themselves.  Another example, was that of Mr DJ Van Vuuren, addressing a congress of the Health Officials Association in Port Elizabeth in December 1957.  He said there was danger of impoverishing the economy of the cities if Africans were allowed to trade in their own townships and amongst their people.  He further said the Africans earned thousands of pounds in the cities but is this, but is the city protecting its main shopping area?  Mr Lesolang recalled that even today the spirit of wanting to take black trade out of his owners hands still existed.  Perhaps even stronger.  Throughout the country, we were required to conduct small business, catering only for the daily needs of our people in the urban areas.
 When a black buying community buys in town, and rubbed shoulders with whites in the course of their shopping, they are said to be crowding whites, something which many whites see as very undesirable.  Mr Chairman, I want to briefly come to the formation of Nafcoc.
 In 1955, a general meeting of all African traders on the Reef was convened to form the Johannesburg African Chamber of Commerce, abbreviated JACCOB.  The organisation which has widened horizons, brought the African trader into the same fold with other associations and into competition with its white counterparts.  The Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce.  At the Chambers conference in 1959, it was reported that there were still small traders organisations reporting to represent African traders, but not under the ages of JACCOB.  Some of them were reported to be springing up in the provinces.  JACCOB organised a traders' conference in Orlando in April 1964, to unify these associations under one national chamber body.  Three hundred delegates attended the conference and gave back to the National African Chamber of Commerce, NAFCOB, also an abbreviation.  Its first president was Richard Maponya and Mr Maponya served Nafcoc for two years as its president during which time he relentlessly emphasised the need for black unity. Up until 1968, Nafcoc was organised along provincial lines and local chamber branches were affiliated to provincial organisations.  Provincial organisations, especially in the Transvaal and Natal and Western Cape enjoyed good support under very able leadership.  
 The period after 1968, was a period of phenomenal development, reorganisation of branches into regional rather than provincial associations.  Early in January 1969, after occupying the presidential suite for barely three months, Doctor Mponyane and his executives were called to Pretoria by Dr Piet Koornhof.  Dr Koornhof, deputy minister of Bantu Administration and Development at the time met with a much wider deputation than anticipated as Nafcob suspected that the Department would try to divide the association into ethnic components in conformity with the prevailing government policies.  On presenting his plea for ethnic changes, the minister said the integrated umbrella organisation at the top would not be tolerated.  That was the most exasperating time for members of Nafcoc throughout the Republic.  Some branches felt that the organisation should rather give in and accept the pattern proposed by Dr Koornhof.  
 In the face of government pressure, at the fifth conference of Nafcob, held at Pietermaritzburg in May 1969, the conference resolved that the unity of Nafcoc be retained and be re-organised into regions.  For the purpose of granting a greater measure of autonomy to the regions it was also agreed that the name Nafcob be changed to Nafcoc and that each region should be represented directly on the national executive.  Having regionalised, the organisation began to make new demands from the government.  Nafcoc asked the government to grant African business in urban areas, title deeds for their sites and a ten point memorandum asked the government to change its policy so that approved African traders could firearms to protect their businesses.
   The chamber also asked that the government revise its policy under which the Bantu Investment Corporation was not allowed to finance industrial and commercial undertakings for Africans in urban areas.   A letter from Dr Koornhof, threatened however to dampen their spirits and pose the possibility of splitting Nafcoc.  Dr Koornhof's response to the memorandum was that the chamber and its affiliated provincial organisations be re-organised along ethnic lines if it wanted the government to consider its proposal.  This meant the chamber, the chamber would have to break up into Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, North Sotho, South Sotho, Shangaan and Venda groups.  The demand from Dr Koornhof had already opened a (unclear) within the ranks of the chamber.  With some members of favour, in favour of the ethnic grouping and others against it.  Those against it believed that rigid ethnic re-grouping would bring about confusion and ultimately the death of Nafcoc.  At about the same time, Nafcoc asked Minister PW Botha, to dismantle development co-operation as part of his economic new deal for blacks.  Before that extraordinary conference, tempers were expected to be especially short over black - white partnerships.  One major black retailer burst out,
"While I can't graze my cow in the white man's field, his will never graze in mine'.
They advocated for improvement in black - white partnership terms, while also urging him to scrap all race laws.  More than a hundred Nafcoc delegates also decided in a closed cession to seek international funding for business ventures and throw open the organisations membership to Coloureds and Asians.  The president of Tamsonyane (?) had said, 
" The mood is positive and there is no bitterness, we want to wipe colour out of the business sector".
The government refused to speak to Nafcoc for the next seven years.