Reparations and the Business Sector¶
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee (1998). Reparations and the Business Sector. Report of the Reparation & Rehabilitation Committee, Volume Six, Section Two, Chapter Five. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa.
| Type | report |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | policy analysis |
| Period studied | 1895–1998 |
| Regions | South Africa, Switzerland, Bantustans/homelands, Southern Africa (Namibia, Angola, Mozambique) |
| Themes | business and state, mining migrant labour, macro fiscal finance debt, sanctions divestment, unions strikes, inequality poverty unemployment, transition post apartheid, origins segregation, bantustans removals influx |
| Citation key | truthandreconciliationcommission1998 |
Argument¶
The TRC committee argues that business, through commission or omission, benefited materially from apartheid and therefore has at least a moral obligation to fund reparation. It points to cheap migrant labour, landlessness, the suppression of unions, cheap electricity, and arms and finance linked to the state. It restates the Commission's funding proposals (wealth tax, once-off levies, a 1% market-capitalisation donation, a retrospective profits surcharge) and judges the Business Trust's R800 million inadequate. It then builds case studies for possible claims against Swiss and other foreign lenders, Eskom and the parastatals, and Anglo American. These rest on 'odious debt', public-policy unenforceability, the UN Apartheid Convention and 'unjust enrichment'. The method is a normative, legal and historical argument built on submissions and examples rather than systematic data.
Evidence and method¶
Business and labour hearings and submissions to the TRC (including the Anglo American submission and the NUM report), earlier TRC volumes, Swiss bank and Finance Ministry correspondence, statistics on Eskom loans, forward-cover losses and mine mortality, press and parliamentary quotations, and legal doctrine and precedents.
Place in the debates¶
- Cheap labour thesis / business complicity in apartheid (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Sides with the revisionist view that business broadly benefited from migrant labour, influx control, landlessness and the repression of unions. It treats business opposition as late, weak and indecisive, and says the mines provided the blueprint for grand apartheid.
- Liberal vs revisionist on apartheid and growth / modernisation thesis (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Rejects Anglo American's claim that capitalism would modernise and liberalise the country. It argues the corporation's empire was built on coerced labour and racist employment policies.
- Sanctions effectiveness and the role of foreign lenders (see Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement). Holds that Swiss banks and other lenders, notably through the 1985 debt standstill and continued gold imports, helped prolong apartheid and gave the state a breathing space.
- Corporate liability and reparations (odious debt, unjust enrichment) (see Finance, capital flight, the 1985 debt crisis and banking). Argues that a legal and moral case exists for claims against lenders, parastatals and mining houses. It concedes that more research is needed.
Findings¶
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The TRC found that business was central to the economy that sustained the apartheid state. (p. 2)
Business was central to the economy that sustained the South African state during the apartheid years
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The Business Trust, business's reparations vehicle, is judged paltry relative to need. (p. 4)
The Business Trust, established for the purpose of reparations, has to date received a total of some R800 million from the South African private sector.
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Swiss banks were central to the gold trade in the late 1960s. (p. 6)
In 1969, the Swiss banks imported over 1000 tons of gold – half the world’s annual production.
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Foreign banks and institutions provided large loans to Eskom, a lifeline of the apartheid economy. (p. 10)
international financial institutions and foreign private banks granted loans to Eskom amounting to at least US$7.5 billion.
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State forward-cover for the parastatals produced large losses borne by taxpayers. (p. 10)
Of this amount, R19.1 billion was directly attributable to long-term
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Black miners' and electricity workers' real wages were stagnant for decades. (p. 10)
For the 58 years between 1911 and 1969 there was no increase in the real wages of black miners and electricity workers.
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Black households were largely unelectrified even after decades of electricity generation. (p. 12)
It was estimated in 1992 that about three million black households had no access to electricity
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The mines, not the Afrikaner state, provided the template for grand apartheid. (p. 14)
Thus the blueprint for ‘grand apartheid’ was provided by the mines and was not an Afrikaner state innovation.
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Accident mortality on the gold mines remained high, and the migrant system exported disease and disability costs. (p. 16)
mortality rate on the gold mines as a result of accidents stood at 113 for every 100 000 miners.
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Union recognition did not end dismissals of strikers, and Anglo American dismissed many strikers. (p. 16)
Anglo American cut the biggest swathe through workers’ ranks when it dismissed 50 000 workers who were on strike for a living wage.
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Business reform gestures were reversed once repression restored order and the debt was rescheduled. (p. 17)
once mass detentions brought a modicum of quiet to the townships and factory floors
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRC Final Report Volume Four, Chapter Two (business and labour hearings, institutional hearing on business) | commission or official report | apartheid era (hearings late 1990s) | Supplies the Commission's finding that business was central to the apartheid economy and generally benefited from apartheid policies. |
| TRC Final Report Volume Five, Chapter Eight (recommendations on business and restitution) | commission or official report | 1998 | Source for the recommendations on business responsibility, the Business Reconciliation Fund and the 'huge and widening gap' quotation. |
| Business and labour submissions and hearings before the TRC (including the Anglo American submission and the Chamber of Mines submission) | interviews oral history | 1997-1998 | Used for business self-justifications (Anglo American's housing and union-recognition claims) and for admissions such as the mines' instigation of tribalism. |
| Sworn evidence to the Commission on Eskom's armoury and attempted sale to Inkatha | interviews oral history | late apartheid years | Supports the claim that senior Eskom staff tried to make arms available to Inkatha with police knowledge. |
| Correspondence between Swiss banks and the Finance Ministry in Pretoria | state archives | 1950-1980 | Shows foreign banks lent to Eskom only on condition of central government guarantees. |
| Statistics on foreign loans to Eskom by lender country, 1950-1980 (unnamed compilation) | international trade or finance data | 1950-1980 | Quantifies the foreign financing of Eskom, at least US$7.5bn, by lender country. |
| Eskom debt and capital investment figures; South African Reserve Bank Forward Exchange Contracts Adjustment Account, 1981-1998 | official statistical series | 1981-1998 | Establishes foreign debt shares of Eskom and the taxpayer losses on forward cover. |
| Estimate of unelectrified black households, schools and clinics, 1992 | official statistical series | 1992 | Shows the extent of black exclusion from electricity. |
| Chamber of Mines Native Labour Department 1895 migration control regulations and Chamber of Mines submission to the 1944 commission on 'native wages' | chamber of mines or recruiting records | 1895; 1944 | Shows mine owners sought labour control and relied on subsidiary subsistence in the reserves, prefiguring the pass laws. |
| NUM report on repression at Anglo American mines | union or movement records | 1980s | Evidence that union meetings had to be approved by mine management despite recognition. |
| Mine mortality, tuberculosis treatment and workers' compensation figures (unnamed sources) | official statistical series | 1950s-1993 | Documents accident mortality, TB deaths among repatriated miners and racial compensation differentials. |
| Anglo American corporate literature and public statements (Oppenheimer 1974 call; Relly statements) | company records or reports | 1950s-1988 | Quoted to contrast Anglo American's self-image with its practice, and for the estimated R20bn offshore investment. |
| Legislation: Land Acts 1913 and 1936; Group Areas Act 1950; National Keypoints Act 1980; UN Apartheid Convention 1976 | legislation gazette | 1913-1980 | Used for the structural and legal argument on dispossession, segregation of services, outsourced security and the legal basis for claims. |
| Swiss gold-trade, lending and parliamentary record (Zurich Gold Pool, 1984 loans, Leutwiler debt deal, Swiss Parliament sanctions debates) | secondary literature compilation | 1948-1989 | Documents Swiss banks' role in gold marketing and debt rescheduling to build the case for reparations. |
| Socio-economic statistics on poverty, unemployment, education and services by race (unattributed) | official statistical series | late 1990s | Sets out the contemporary inequality justifying business reparations. |
| Legal precedents on odious debt and unjust enrichment (1923 Costa Rica/Royal Bank of Canada arbitration; 1982 First National Bank of Chicago article) | other | 1923-1982 | Provides the legal grounds for the proposed reparations claims against lenders. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Normative and advocacy argument, not empirical testing. It draws on TRC findings, selective illustrative figures and case examples (Swiss banks, Eskom, Anglo American) alongside legal reasoning (odious debt, unjust enrichment, public policy) to justify business reparations.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Business as a whole benefited financially and materially from apartheid policies, through cheap migrant labour, suppression of unions, cheap energy and similar mechanisms. (p. 140) | TRC business and labour hearings and Volume Four findings; illustrative examples from submissions, with no systematic data presented. | Asserted |
| Swiss banks were key partners of Pretoria through the gold trade and 1980s lending, and prolonged apartheid by rescheduling the debt in 1985. (p. 145) | Unattributed Swiss gold import tonnages, loan counts and the Leutwiler negotiation, drawn from a Swiss compilation. | Partial data |
| Foreign loans were an economic lifeline for Eskom and parastatals, and the taxpayer bore large forward-cover losses. (p. 148) | Loan figures by lender country, Swiss-Finance Ministry correspondence and Reserve Bank forward-cover account figures. | Partial data |
| Electrified black townships subsidised white municipal areas, because separate administration under the Group Areas Act left townships without industrial load balancing. (p. 150) | Structural reasoning on tariffs and load factors, with no tariff data shown. | Asserted |
| The mining houses, through the Chamber of Mines, shaped migrant labour and compound systems and provided the blueprint for grand apartheid. (p. 152) | Chamber of Mines 1895 regulations, 1944 wages commission submission and the mines' TRC submission. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Anglo American collaborated with the security apparatus and the military-industrial complex, and its union recognition was driven by self-interest. (p. 153) | Examples including Western Deep, JMCs, Tongaat Hulett's Waterloo farm, Barlow Rand board overlaps and the NUM report, with no archival detail given. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Mine safety and compensation arrangements shifted costs onto black workers, who suffered high mortality and received racially unequal compensation. (p. 154) | Cited accident, tuberculosis and compensation figures (1993 mortality rate of 113 per 100 000; R2000 payments; 1:13 ratio) without a source named. | Partial data |
| Business contributions to reparations have been inadequate, with R800 million to the Business Trust against the scale of need. (p. 142) | Reported Business Trust receipts and the Swiss fund commitment (less than 0.02 per cent of 1980s profits), with no accounting shown. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The text says only that case studies are illustrative ('without prejudice') since not every corporation can be examined, and that more research is required on the other lenders and the IMF.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The chapter gives no systematic data on profits, wage differentials or loan volumes linked to specific firms, and most figures carry no named source. Company archives, Reserve Bank and Eskom annual reports, Chamber of Mines wage series and bank lending records would test the claims about benefit and complicity; much of this existed then and parts are now accessible. Nor does it quantify the counterfactual cost of apartheid to business, which business submissions argued, or the value of enrichment required for the proposed legal claims.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.