The General Industries Workers of South Africa (Giwusa) has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to fire Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie in a storm over a job advertisement that favoured certain racial groups and excluded black candidates.
This was after the department advertised a vacancy for the position of Deputy Director for administrative support and coordination in McKenzie’s office.
The advert stated that preference would be given to Coloured males and females, Indian males and females, and white males.
Giwusa said this was blatant racism, adding that McKenzie should be fired, describing it as a flagrant act of systemic exclusion against African candidates and a blatant violation of the law.
Giwusa’s president Mametlwe Sebei said such discrimination was not only divisive and oppressive, but it serves the interests of political elites attempting to distract the working class from their failure to deliver jobs or basic services.
He said the advert and requirements also violate the principles of equity enshrined in South Africa’s Constitution and perpetuates the injustices that the constitution mandates every state organ to actively dismantle.
The position requires a matric certificate or equivalent qualification. An appropriate three-year degree or national diploma in administration, public management and administration, office administration, secretariat or relevant qualification. It also requires three to five years of management experience in the political and parliamentary process.
The position that had been advertised on the department’s website as since been removed.
“That the ANC even appointed him to cabinet just reveals the level of degeneration they have reached and the treachery they continue to commit against the working class that once lifted them to power at enormous cost and sacrifice in a struggle to end the Apartheid-style racism he espouses,” he said.
Sebei said the exclusion of African candidates from preferential consideration was a profound betrayal of South Africa’s commitment to redress the legacy of apartheid.
He said for centuries, African people bore the brunt of colonial and apartheid-era oppression, engineered to deny them access to education, economic opportunity, representation and leadership roles in the state and society.
“The democratic dispensation, underpinned by corrective policies like the Employment Equity Act (EEA), was meant to center the empowerment of the most marginalised. Instead, this advertisement resurrects apartheid-era hierarchies by relegating Africans—who not only suffered most historically but continue at the present to face disproportionate unemployment and poverty—to the bottom of the hiring queue.
"It is indefensible that the department has favoured White males—a demographic that historically monopolised power and privilege under apartheid—and continues to do so today as beneficiaries of preferential treatment,” said Sebei.
He said this decision consciously and actively undermines efforts to achieve redress and de-racialisation of the state and workplaces. The preferential treatment of other groups, while excluding Africans, reflects a distorted interpretation of EEA that entrenches racial division rather than fostering cohesion, redress and equity, he said.
McKenzie and his department did not respond to a request for comment but on Facebook he said that his department’s hiring pressure was aimed at addressing the historical imbalances in employment opportunities for certain racial groups.
“I am for all races. When I find that other races have been ignored & rarely given a job opportunity, it is my duty to fix it, I'm fixing things,” he said.
“I want all races to be represented in the Department that I lead, go boil somewhere else.”
On X, McKenzie defended his department’s approach, saying it is consistent with the Employment Equality Act (EEA), which seeks to ensure fair representation of all races in the workplace.
“Employment Equity, are you saying that you have never heard of it? We (are) making sure all races are represented, nothing really here to be alarmed about. Salute,” McKenzie added.