This article may contain graphic and/or adult content unsuitable for minors and sensitive readers.
The South African Institute of Race Relations says it is time to scrap race-based affirmative action in South Africa, given the damage the policy is causing to poor and vulnerable communities.
Citing the water crisis in Bloemhof in North West, in which 3 babies died, CEO, Dr Frans Cronje said race-based affirmative action was a veil behind which to conceal corruption and incompetence - and mainly vulnerable communities are paying a deadly price for this.
He told Algoa FM News that because many people were appointed to positions on the basis of their race, there was little public criticism of those appointments - even when the people in question were unfit in those positions.
Cronje says the policy has created a very small black elite, that uses its capacity to control access to the benefits of the policy to perpetuate its own advantage.
He says fewer than 10% of black people and/or households have private medical insurance or pay bonds on houses -- two of the best benchmarks of middle class status.
Cronje says at the same time, more than half of young people are unemployed.
