'Unbalanced" affirmative action has led to poor service delivery, especially in municipalities, and was a threat to the country's future stability, former president FW de Klerk has warned.
De Klerk said private companies were not always honest with the government about the private discussions in boardrooms about affirmative action.
"Our private sector is too cosy with government," he said.
De Klerk was speaking at trade union Solidarity's one-day conference on affirmative action in the city yesterday.
There have been widespread and violent protests about poor service delivery in various municipalities recently, but it could not be established if they had anything to do with affirmative action.
De Klerk, who heads a foundation supporting minority rights, told the conference that the "wholesale appointment of people who are not suitably qualified has been a major factor in dysfunctional service delivery by the state and particularly at municipal level".
"Unbalanced affirmative action has undermined the right of millions of ordinary South Africans to equal enjoyment of many of their basic rights in the constitution including most notably the right to life and security.
"Crime prevention and crime fighting is far from what it should be.
"(This also included) the right to healthcare, to food, to water and to social security and the right to reasonable and good education and training," he said.
De Klerk added that this "unbalanced affirmative action", or the appointment of people on the basis of race rather than qualifications, achieved the opposite of what it was supposed to achieve, which is to promote equality.
"The failure to effectively promote equality is not only a constitutional disappointment but a threat to our future stability," he said.
De Klerk said the constitution stated that qualifications should be considered over race when appointing people, and this did not always happen.
There were also not enough suitably qualified black people to appoint.
"Despite progress, black South Africans in 2009 accounted for only 17 percent of the candidates who passed the chartered accountant final exams.
"In 2008, only 23 percent of the engineers registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa were black," he said.
He also blamed the government for leaving posts vacant rather than filling them with whites. He added that the exodus of 120 000 qualified and experienced whites from the civil service "had been a major element" in the deterioration of public services.
"When I say that, it is not about white and black but about sufficiently trained and sufficiently experienced people," he said.
De Klerk said economic growth would eventually end the "unbalanced affirmative action" in South Africa as it did apartheid, as the country would have to use all its talent to keep up with competitors.
He told young people to talk to the government and to have open dialogues, rather than protest, which in his view did not achieve much.
Addressing the same gathering, Trevor Tutu, the son of Nobel laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, said affirmative action was working against South Africa as young skilled South Africans felt there were better job opportunities outside of the country.
"In this manner we are exporting our children to sustain other countries at our expense, including former colonial masters," he said.
He said that 15 years into democracy South Africa could have created equal opportunities for all and that people should not be punished for mistakes committed by their forefathers.
"Race is not useful for anything," he said.
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