Chinese South Africans qualify for BEE and EE

By Alan Hammond
A court ruling has determined that South Africans of Chinese descent are entitled to benefit from affirmative action and empowerment programmes.
Judge Cynthia Pretorius at the Pretoria High Court found in favour of an application by the Chinese association of South Africa, Casa. Chinese South Africans will now be considered to be "Black People' as determined by the two acts.
Under apartheid, Chinese citizens were classified as Coloured, while Japanese were considered white.
However practice with the Black Economic Empowerment Act and the Employment Equity Act had excluded Chinese South Africans from designated groups - even though the laws did not specifically preclude them. The court action was in part intended to clear up this confusion.
The relevant government ministers had originally opposed the court action but decided in April this year not to challenge the proposals in court.
Casa's chairperson, Patric Chong told Sapa that he was overjoyed at the judgment. He said the community would like to make use of this newfound freedom to create even more jobs for the unemployed.
"As Chinese South Africans we were officially classified as 'coloured' during the apartheid era and suffered under the same discriminatory laws prior to 1994.
"The logical inference was thus that Chinese South Africans would automatically qualify for the same benefits afforded to the "coloured" group, post 1994.
"However, this was not the case and the Chinese South Africans have suffered a second round of unfair discrimination by not being sure of their status under the two Acts," he said.