Supervisors Vote Against Apartheid : Urge Retirement Board to Divest S. Africa-Linked Stocks

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to urge the county’s retirement board to withdraw more than $80 million invested in firms doing business in South Africa.

The board approved the proposal without discussion.

Supervisor Leon Williams, chairman of the board and its only black member, said he hoped the action would help overturn a system “more oppressive” than the British government’s rule over the colonies before the American Revolution.

Williams’ anti-apartheid program is to be implemented after study by the county’s top administrator and the Board of Retirement, but officials’ reactions indicated that it may have little effect on the county’s investment portfolio.

County officials say that because the Board of Retirement is an autonomous body, it need not answer to the supervisors.

“When it comes to telling the retirement board where to put its money, I think the Board of Supervisors is going to have a tough time,” said Manuel Lopez, the county’s director of financial management.

County Treasurer James Jones said members of the nine-person Board of Retirement may not be able to vote for divestment even if they wish to do so.

“Each member has a fiduciary responsibility to do what a prudent man would do in a situation like that, and prudent would be interpreted to mean excluding from investment decisions anything having to do with political or social issues, or anything other than the best interests of the funds.”

As written, Williams’ program:

- Urges the retirement board to make no new investments in corporations doing business in South Africa.

- Urges the board to divest “in a reasonably prudent, careful and timely manner” all current holdings in companies doing business in South Africa.

- Requires that the county not buy any goods or services from the government of South Africa, although county officials said no such purchases are now made.

In a letter to his colleagues, Williams called South Africa’s system of apartheid a “repugnant, racist policy that denies the most elemental rights to the vast majority of its population.”

Williams said that by divesting its holdings, the county could “transcend a purely symbolic gesture” and instead demonstrate in “a concrete way our commitment to human and civil rights in South Africa.”

The county’s pension fund totals $516 million, $80.7 million of which is invested in 40 corporations that do business in South Africa, Jones said.

Among the largest such holdings are $13 million invested in IBM, $4.5 million in General Electric and $2.3 million in NCR Corp., Jones said.