Competition and Inequality in Industrial Fisheries: Lessons from Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and fishery quota allocations in South Africa

Thando Vilakazi (Director, Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED), University of Johannesburg, thandov@uj.ac.za )
Stefano Ponte (Director, Centre for Business and Development Studies, Copenhagen Business School, spo.msc@cbs.dk )

Since 1994, South Africa has embarked in a series of programmes aimed at empowering groups and individuals that had been negatively affected by the engrained inequality of the previous system of apartheid. This has been attempted directly by government through efforts to deliver better public ser­vices and housing, and indirectly through the process of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). BEE as a concept emerged in the early 1990s, with an initial focus on increasing ‘black’ ownership of shares in major corporations. Progress was slow, however, and in 1998 the then-President Thabo Mbeki opened the National Assembly debate on ‘Reconciliation and Nation Building’ with what became known in South Africa as his ‘Two Nations’ speech. In his address, Mbeki argued that national unity and reconciliation between black and white South Africans were impossible dreams if socio-economic inequality, which prevented black South Africans from exercising their citizenship rights to an equal extent to white South Africans, were not rapidly overcome.
Mbeki’s speech, and more general accusations that BEE was simply enriching a small number of well-connected politicians and businesspeople in the context of persistent poverty, eventually led government and business to re-package the concept as ‘broad-based BEE’. Under this umbrella, ownership has been only one of seven main criteria upon which the empowerment credentials of businesses in South Africa are assessed – the others being management representation, employment equity, skills develop­ment, preferential procurement, enterprise development and corporate social investment. These criteria have underpinned BEE from 2000 onwards, when a number of industry empowerment charters, a Broad-Based BEE Act and a series of codes of implementation have been generated. Yet, the outcomes of even this new approach have been frustratingly slow, especially in sectors where few, large companies dominate. As part of a broader research collaboration effort between Copenhagen Business School and the University of Johannesburg on these themes, in this paper we examine interactions between industrial fishery quota allocations by the government and competition (including Competition Tribunal cases of anti-competitive behaviour) to assess the potential and limitations of regulatory and market approaches to addressing inequality in South Africa. 

Navigating the Supply Chain

Andreas Wieland (Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management, Copenhagen Business School, awi.om@cbs.dk )

Abstract available upon request.