Excluding white businesses in South Africa is not fair in any way – Dirk Hermann

Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann said that they will pressure Amazon to stop excluding white businesses from its Equity Equivalent Investment Program (EEIP).

This followed an investigation into the AWS Equity Equivalent Investment Program (EEIP), which requires 100% black ownership.

As such, the Amazon Web Services’ Equity Equivalent Investment Program has strict minimum eligibility criteria, including a prohibition on white businesses.

“You must be 100% black-owned as defined in the ICT Sector B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice,” Amazon explained.

“100% Black South African, as the term ‘black people’ is a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds, and Indians.”

Trade union Solidarity investigated Amazon for excluding companies from a business development programme in South Africa based on the race of their owners.

It said that there is “nothing diverse or inclusive about a programme where an owner’s race determines whether their business has access to economic opportunities”.

Solidarity said that Amazon cannot promote one set of values on equality and non-discrimination to the world while applying a different standard in South Africa.

On Thursday, 3 September 2026, Hermann provided feedback about their investigation and the feedback they received from Amazon.

They found that Amazon does indeed exclude businesses which are not 100% black-owned. “They exclude any business that has any form of white shareholding,” he said.

“This means that 50% black shareholding is not enough. 60% is not enough. Not even 95% is enough. It must be 100%. This is not fair in any way.”

He added that Amazon responded to Solidarity during the investigation, and tabled two arguments why they were wrong.

• They say Solidarity is wrong because their 100% exclusion on race is not exclusion, it is diversity.

• They also said Solidarity is wrong because Amazon was compelled by the law.

“That does not make us wrong. It still means that we are right, except for the minor detail that there is no obligation on a company to exclude 100%,” he said.

Hermann explained that the American government is putting pressure on the South African government to remove racial laws because they create trade barriers.

“However, during this period, the American giant, Amazon, establishes trade barriers in South Africa purely on the basis of race. 100% on the basis of race,” he said.

“Solidarity has decided we are going to take further action. Within the next week, we will announce our further steps.”

“We are not going to stop. We are going to put a lot of pressure on them. The reality now is that they will have to remove it, and we are not going to stop this struggle.”

Freedom Front Plus also set to take action

The Freedom Front Plus said that it would bring Amazon Web Services’ (AWS’s) requirement of having to ne 100% black-owned to the attention of American authorities.

“AWS confirmed that full black ownership is a minimum entry requirement for the program,” the party’s Jaco Mulder said.

Mulder is a member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and the Freedom Front Plus’s spokesperson on Trade, Industry and Competition.

He said that the Amazon programme’s minimum requirements mean a business loses access if one shareholder is not black.

“We will formally approach the US Ambassador to South Africa, L. Brent Bozell III, requesting that the matter be referred to the appropriate US authorities,” he said.

He said that this requirement raises questions about Amazon, a multinational company, applying an absolute race requirement outside the United States.

This may not be compatible with the US government’s current policy on race-based discrimination in contracting and program participation.

President Donald Trump’s Executive Order stipulates that federal contractors may not engage in race-discriminatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) activities.

“This includes differential treatment based on race in contracting and program participation,” Mulder said.

“This policy framework, therefore, provides a relevant context within which the matter can be investigated.”

The party has also asked AWS and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition where the 100% requirement originates.

It wants to know whether it is a direct requirement of South African B-BBEE regulations, a government condition, or a decision by AWS itself.

“This distinction is important because transformation and empowerment should not permanently classify people by race and grant or deny opportunities on that basis,” he said.