OPEN LETTER: RP Writes to Home Affairs Minister Seeking Clarification On Comments Regarding The Legality Of Racial Classification In South Africa

10 December 2025

OPEN LETTER SEEKING CLARIFICATION ON THE MINISTER’S COMMENTS REGARDING THE LEGALITY OF RACIAL CLASSIFICATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Dear Minister Schreiber,

We are writing to you to seek an official public clarification of the statement you made on the ‘X’ social media platform at 19:50 on 9 December 2025. A screenshot of the statement is appended at the end of this letter for your convenience.

As staunch opponents of the system of racial classification and the principle of forced demographic representivity as promoted by the ANC’s ‘National Democratic Revolution (NDR)’, and authors of the Non-racialism Bill, which we submitted to the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Affairs earlier this year, we were delighted by your declaration which we applaud.

In your statement, you have emphasised your role as the custodian of South Africa’s population register, and you have explicitly made the point that there is no basis in law to compel anyone to become “racial classifiers”. Once again, we are delighted at this approach, but question whether your partners in the GNU have the same understanding of the law.

The Employment Equity Act (EEA) (as amended) requires designated employers to submit detailed annual reports in which every single employee is placed into one of the four Apartheid-era racial categories. Where employees lawfully choose not to self-classify, the Employment Equity regulations explicitly require the employer to establish the employee’s racial category using whatever other reliable data is available, so that the mandatory report can be completed and the employer can avoid penalties of up to 10 % of annual turnover.

As a minister in the GNU, we ask that you issue a formal statement clarifying this contradiction so that employers can refer to your directive when refusing to racially classify their employees. Your statement can then become the linchpin of their legal justification, thus avoiding the severe penalties they are currently threatened with. Employers are required to make their next submission by 15 January 2026.

We appreciate that the administration of the EEA falls under the Minister of Employment and Labour, but it is your statement which we are seeking clarity upon.

Thank you once again for taking a brave and highly principled stance on this issue. The founding constitutional principle of non-racialism remains farcical when racial classifications and racial discrimination, however well-intentioned, remain a daily reality for South Africans.

Yours sincerely

Phil Craig

Leader, Referendum Party