ParlyReportSA

Report on Black Industrialist Policy awaited….. 

sent to clients 21 January….  The Black Industrialist Policy, now in place and engineered by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), is due to be debated in Parliament early February.

ack bdlive

A progress report will be made by Trade and Industry Minister, Dr Rob Davies to the relevant portfolio committee shortly. The plan was submitted to Cabinet by and approved in early November 2015. The purpose of the policy, the Cabinet said at the time, was to focus on growth and competitiveness of Black-owned enterprises.

The plan is designed to “facilitate the meaningful participation of Black-owned and managed companies within industry” and is another extension to DTI’s Industrial Action Plan (IPAP).  It backs up, Minister Davies said when launching the programme, both the NDP and President Zuma’s nine-point plan laid out in the 2015 State of Nation Address.

More Black control releases more State money

The scheme offers a cost sharing grant with the DTI, ranging from 30% to 50%, to approved entities to a maximum of R50m.   The value of the grant in terms of any proposal will depend on the level of Black ownership and management control and must be for capital investment and other support measures, such as working capital.

Minister Davies said in his launch parliamentary media briefing  that a number of private banks had  approached DTI prepared to partner with government on the initiative. He said the idea was “to unlock the industrial potential that exists within Black-owned and managed businesses through deliberate, targeted and well-defined financial and non-financial interventions.”

Focus on Black ownership

Not mentioning job creation specifically, he said that his department particularly wanted to “speed up the entry of Black industrialists to enter strategic and targeted industrial sectors and value chains.” “South Africa will not be able to industrialise to maximise growth “unless it simultaneously includes the Black industrialist on a sustainable basis”, he said.

Manufacturing core needed

Minister Davies said that the only route for future of the economy was to build the manufacturing sector and the inclusion of the black industrialists and manufacturers had to be encouraged.

The DTI had earmarked R1bn of seed capital to assist the Black industrialists to raise the necessary equity required to access the private sector/banking market to access debt funding, he said.  This capital would be complemented by funding from developmental finance institutions.

He added that while incentivising the inclusion of the Black industrialists in the manufacturing sector, the parties involved “needed to be committed, willing to take risks and be willing to look for long-term returns and not short-term rents.”

” This policy proposes focused efforts to facilitate inclusion and participation of Black industrialists in manufacturing activities, with an understanding that more equal societies tend to grow faster than those that are unequal,” said the Minister.

Opposition members will specifically ask how this programme has contributed to job creation.

Previous articles on category subject
SA’s economic woes not BEE, says DTI – ParlyReportSA
25.1% is maximum BEE control, says DTI – ParlyReportSA
DTI does flip flop on BEE codes – ParlyReportSA

BEE and economic climate not connected…..

In his introduction to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) presentation to Parliament on the current position with regard to the implementation of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as of August, 2015,  DTI’s DG, Lionel October, said that contrary to some claims, BEE was nothing to do with the many economic problems that beset South Africa.
In his overview, before discussing the detail of the B-BBEE Act, the Codes and Sector Charters, October said he wanted place the need for urgent transformation in its proper context. He said that indeed South Africa, as an emerging economy, had been hurt by global factors recently by Chinese currency interventions and originally by its own energy supply problems.

Key to future, says DTI

However, he said, economic transformation in the form of black advancement, procurement from black entrepreneurs, the transfer of basic mineral wealth into beneficiated products and a rebuilt and transformed manufacturing sector held the key to development.   BEE was nothing to do with the pervading “doom and gloom” scenarios that were persisting in business and industry circles.

Lionel October said “things now needed to be speeded up”. He claimed that the country now had all the legislation, tools and direction needed to contribute the shortage of jobs and quoted JP Landman by saying that South Africa faced a further problem that population growth of 200,000 births a year more than the previous year every year was as much a problem currently, he said.

The big sell

In tracing the development of BEE since the commencement of the B-BBEE Amendment Act in 2014, the adoption of the B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice in May this year, DTI had held 46 workshops to explain and help in the development and understanding of the need for black empowerment. It was not a racial issue, he insisted, but a programme of necessity if South Africa was to survive economically.

He said that the process of establishing at BEE Commission was at “an advanced stage” – the new acting commissioner having been announced recently.

B-BBEE ACT trumps all

Acting chief director of BEE at DTI, Liso Steto, then reported that the new “trumping” provision in the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act will take effect in two months time when the 12-month transitional period expires. An example of “trumping”, he explained to MPs, was if, for example, a government department put out for tenders and ignored the provisions of the B-BBEE Act. In that case, the Act would “trump” any regarding the tenders.
This trumping therefore, he said, will take precedence over any other law and relates to all other instruments of black economic empowerment, such as Codes of Good Practice and Sectoral Charters. The provision would come into effect in October 2015, by regulation.

Codes get to nitty gritty

On Codes, Steto said, the major development had been the issue of relating “employment equity” to “management control”, with the latter now being the uniform name. Also “preferential procurement” and “enterprise development” were merged for evaluation into one element re-named “enterprise and supplier development”.

Minimum requirements had been introduced for “ownership”, “skills development” and “enterprise and supplier development”, as above.

Fighting “fronting”

Acting DG Steto re-confirmed that 25.1% remained as the target for black ownership. Emphasis was laid on the expression “true ownership” when explaining the 40% sub-minimum applicable on the net value of ownership in the hands of black people. Only investments regulated and based in South Africa will qualify as a “mandated investment”.

On Sector Codes, it was confirmed that ten sectors had been given extensions since 2013 but the final, final date was now October 2015 for all sectors. To date tourism, property, agriBEE, forestry, the media, advertising and communication were in line for approval. The process of aligning the mining charter with the liquid fuel charter had begun.

Split must come

Rumour has it “in the corridor” that these will eventually be split but the whole issue of the implementation of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development amendments have to be resolved before such an event can even be considered, resulting in this be an issue way into the future.
Questioning from MPs was limited, a concern being expressed by parliamentarians that the whole issue of verification agencies had to be speeded up by DTI and re-clarified. Lionel October said this was a priority.
MPs also complained that the threshold increase for BEE exempt micro enterprises, now being introduced, from R5m to R10m seemed a strange move if the idea was to develop more small manufacturing businesses but DTI responded that their view was different and the necessity to reduce red tape in the SMME world was essential.

Other articles in this category or as background
25.1% is maximum BEE control, says DTI – ParlyReportSA
DTI does flip flop on B-BBEE codes – ParlyReportSA
Equity quotas court ruling affects BEE legislation – ParlyReportSA
B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice far more onerous – ParlyReportSA
One year to implement B-BBEE Codes – ParlyReportSA
Liquid fuels industry short on BEE charter – ParlyReportSA

Editorial….

DTI does flip flop on B-BBEE pointing…..

There have clearly been were two big elephants in the room during budget vote speech time in the National Assembly over the last two weeks – Eskom and BEE.    Then, suddenly, with DTI reversing their decision to reduce B-BEE pointing award benefits for broad-based employment schemes – one of the elephants disappeared.  It was an amazing flip flop in government policy.

But in actual fact this represents no change, in reality – just simply the fact that the whole structure of what was proposed was seen by all as impractical, unenforceable and to industry, unacceptable.

Backstage dramas

Whether it was business and industry pressure that forced the change, the Chamber of Mines or even the trade union movement itself, after two surprising gazettes announcing reduced awards in terms of black empowerment for broad based shareholder schemes, including employee schemes so carefully worked out in the last two years, and the second gazette correcting the fact that such changes were not retrospective, what happened behind the scenes will never be known. We think it was minister Rob Davies himself who put his foot down.

In a private comment, when sympathising with the minister for having to reverse his department’s announcements so publicly, his answer was “When something goes wrong you have to put it right.”  We admire for that and told him so.

Energy issues remain at the core

As far as the first elephant in the room, the energy crisis, it remains.    Unusually, this year despite all the speeches, the amount of media briefings and portfolio committee debates, including the millions of rands spent on airfares with some forty odd departments and SOEs fielding full teams reporting, it was only the minister of energy, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, who really tackled electricity and the issue of Eskom – all the other ministers appearing avoiding the issue like the plague, even public enterprises.

Correcting the past

What indeed was noticeable, at portfolio committee level as well, that each reporting team and each minister seemed to be more anxious to report on transformation and state ownership issues, as if some very clear dictate had been received that the ANC was not delivering on its election mandate in these areas and this was really the main priority.

Whilst lip service seems to have been paid, and then only in some instances, to the need for foreign investment and issues of the country’s rating image, the lacklustre address by the minister of trade and industry gave only more credence to the belief that redress for past injustices was the only big elephant in their lives and in Union Buildings.

Transformation not economics at forefront

In the committees, where all departments have been reporting on progress towards annual targets, this now being the last quarter, the most important slide in any PowerPoint presentation (following clarity on the audit process) was always the racial makeup of the department concerned in terms of reaching transformation targets and what race ratios currently existed. The theme was obvious.

We have listened to many thousands of words spoken over the month and more is yet to come as we write, but it is all too evident that there is a massive discord between business and industry and President Zuma’s cabinet on priorities.

Final word

Trade and industry minister, Rob Davies, warned parliamentarians in his budget vote speech, when mentioning BEE matters , that members should  be aware that the President had indicated that the central task was to bring about radical economic transformation.      Which really said it all.

Lack of BEE transformation flagged….

The divergence of views on BEE between the parliamentary committee on trade and industry and the department of trade and industry (DTI)  heightened recently with committee chairperson, Joan Fubbs, demanding that within seven days a “technical explanation” as to why  DTI was not hastening speedy transformation within South Africa.

A full report on Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) had to be submitted. to all the members of her committee on progress, or the lack of it in certain areas and the reasons why,  she said, and this was to be submitted before the Christmas recess for further debate in the New Year first session.

Uphill presentations

After a presentation on the current position regarding BEE as a broad subject, Ms Nomonde Mesatywa – chief director of DTI’s BEE secretariat – ran into heavy traffic upon her failure to quantify the nature and amount of research that had been conducted on the success or failure of BEE and the total lack of data on its implementation in her presentation.

The governing party MPs bitterly complained regarding the “soft nature” of recent BBBEE legislation, including the recent BEE Amendment Bill and the powers and suspected lack of ability of the proposed BBBEE Commission to enforce any of the current legislation.

Ms Mesatywa went through the standard briefing for the benefit of newer MPs to explain that the Act had been amended and promulgated in January 2014 to ensure standardisation in reporting from all sources reporting across the economy; the BBBEE Commission having been established to monitor and evaluate BBBEE processes.

The new amendment, she said, aligned the anchor legislation with other legislation impacting on BBBEE and with the Codes of Good Practice.  All the provisions had come into effect on 24 October 2014, she said, except for the trumping clause (section 3), which had been deferred for 12 months and would come into force in October 2015.

DTI said the alignment of sector charters was at an advanced stage and included the construction, property, tourism, transport, financial, mining, chartered accountancy, forestry, agriBEE and IT charters.

Elite only benefitting

Committee members from both the opposition and governing party both lodged complaints that there was a public perception that it was only the black elite who benefited from BEE programmes and there was little factual evidence to the contrary that “ordinary black South Africans” were benefitting.

The Democratic Alliance said it was totally offensive that the state offered a reward to companies only if they complied with BEE regulations and if they did not do so, not only could they not do business with the state but also not with any other companies that dealt with state. The DA described this as “awful”.

The EFF was called to order for suggesting that economic transformation would only be realised “if the ANC was taken out of power” but it was the ANC who sought clarity from DTI on how the new mechanism of using a commission in terms of the new Bill could possibly monitor and evaluate compliance “to ensure that the Codes of Good Practice were taken seriously.”

Long term view

DTI responded on the basis that they had been “overseeing, monitoring, and evaluating black empowerment for a long time” and they wished to assure parliamentarians that they had the experience to do this.

With regard to research generally on the subject of BEE compliance, DTI said their the original survey of some ten years ago showed pretty dismal results at around “level four” but DDG Mesatywa said the latest surveys were on the DTI website and had risen to “level eight”.

The chair commented that such kind responses were vague and unhelpful and the nature and lack of adequate quantitative results was unacceptable and, rather than return for a further presentation in view of the Christmas recess, DTI were instructed to respond in writing to Parliament giving exact numbers on it success or failure, sector by sector, within seven days.

ParlyReport will ask for this document.

Other articles in this category or as background
http://parlyreportsa.co.za/bee/court-ruling-equity-quotas-affects-bee/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za/bee/liquid-fuels-industry-short-transformation/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za/bee/one-year-implement-b-bbee-codes/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za/bee/bee-comes-under-scrutiny/

Fuel industry attacked on BEE …

On the subject of black economic empowerment  (BEE), acting director of the department of energy (DoE), Tseliso Maqubela, told Parliament, before it went into short recess, that the major target for his department was to ensure a more immediate transformation of the liquid fuels industry.   Economic transformation in the energy sector was a top priority, he said, and he told the portfolio committee on energy that much more was needed to be done by this sector to improve the situation.

This was reminiscent of similar complaints made of the mining industry under the same BEE charter by the director general of the department of mineral resources.

Victor Sibiya said, as DoE’s  deputy director of petroleum products, also acting, that one of the three pillars of his department’s programme was compliance, monitoring and enforcement and whilst 30% of petroleum licensing permits showed around a 50% compliance factor this was not enough and new legislation was on its way to “toughen up” on B-BBEE regulations.

New code called for

The challenge at present, he said, was that the process of penalisation was far too cumbersome and did not deal sufficiently with repeated offenders.   A revised code was urgently required, he added.

On a separate subject, Sibaya said that as far as the basic fuel price (BFP) was concerned all calculations were based as if the final product had been produced in South Africa.  DoE was at work, he said, on a paper studying the various elements that contributed to the BFP, particularly with regard to smoothing out fluctuations to the consumer and attempting to align municipalities to the magisterial zones which governed the distribution.

Retail margins were also being studied in a second round of estimations working with operations carried out by what was referred to as the “DoE model service station”. Other factors included the shortly to be published biofuels price schedule which would govern the mix with petroleum products.

Reaching out

Further to economic transformation programmes, Sibaya spoke of a programme to establish fuel stations in deeper rural areas supplying other forms of energy needed by households such as LPG and extending services to include food, household retail goods and community services to improve quality of household life amongst the poor, another NDP priority.

In broad terms the acceleration of LPG supplies to rural areas, in fact to all areas in general, would contribute greatly, he said, to this objective.

Acting DG Tseliso Maqubela said he would respond to the parliamentary enquiry on the volatility of fuel prices in a prepared paper shortly, as this issue was also in the process of being studied at present. When asked about the levy on purchase of vehicles and where the funds went, Maqubela said this was in national treasury’s domain and was “probably an attempt by treasury officials to mitigate on carbon emissions”.

Refinery decisions

Touching on petroleum issues, DG of energy policy, planning and clean energy, Ompi Aphane, told the committee that a decision would be taken during 2016 on expanding oil refining capacity in South Africa based on the conclusions of the liquid fuels infrastructure plan.

Contributing to the basic costs of energy at the moment in South Africa, he said, were current world tensions particularly in the Middle East.   Self-dependency, however, was unfortunately only a long-term goal, he said.

A similar plan to increase refining was an increase in gas supplies based on the current gas usage master plan that had been started and this programme would be concurrent with an urgent expansion of gas storage facilities in the country.

Minister weighs in

Most of parliamentary question time was occupied by the new minister of energy, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, who spoke broadly on energy issues; the fact that she recognised the need for urgent decisions by her ministry; and the necessity for her recently launched ministerial advisory committee on energy to receive input “in order that the opinions of all stakeholders can be considered.”

Such a ‘brains trust’, she said, should also include representation from the portfolio committee on energy itself.

Other articles in this category or as background

http://parlyreportsa.co.za//?s=bee+liquid+fuels

http://parlyreportsa.co.za//bee/eskom-black-owned-coal-mining/

50% equity Bill for women headed for law….

The Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill, drafted by the department of committee on women, children and people with disabilities and tabled before Parliament, demands 50% equity in all businesses for women where “decision making processes” are concerned.

The Bill  appears to have been passed by cabinet, although not making it through first base with NEDLAC. Having had such a response by cabinet, presumably from the President himself, it is highly possible that the Bill will be powered through this last parliamentary session of the present government. The Bill was tabled by minister Lulu Xingwana.

BUSA strongly objected

In its parliamentary phase after tabling, Business Unity SA (BUSA) objected to the Bill in a submission stating that there was absolutely no need for such legislation when laws were already in place covering black equity in which the subject of gender equity or equality was adequately covered.

BUSA argued that in terms of the suggestions made in the Bill, called the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill, such a Bill would attempt to override legislation already in place such as the B-BBEE Act and Employment Equity Acts, this particular Bill calling for 50% equity for women in “decision making areas”.

No labour pool for such law

BUSA called the Bill “unacceptable and unrealistic”, adding that in most cases the labour pool from which the particular type of work envisaged would not even contain a 50% reserve of women. The DA said the Bill was probably unconstitutional.

Some attempt to justify the Bill was made by the department on women, children and people with disabilities at committee level when they said the Bill would not have been approved by cabinet unless government was serious about the fact that only 20% of top posts in business were occupied by women.

A spokesperson said for the department subsequently said that the Bill might initially apply to possibly as yet undefined bodies such as state boards and political formations, which again the DA referred to as “cannibalising” existing state institutions.

The Bill never made it past the NEDLAC process last year but in the last days before Parliament closed in 2013, the Bill appeared on the tabled list and comments were called for by Parliament in the early portion of the 2014 session.

The Bill has now been debated in Parliament, that debate and the issues involved being with our clients before posting on this site. The Bill will undoubtedly be passed in the light of the passion by the minister for the Bill, with opposition members across the spectrum voting against or abstaining.

Previous articles referring to this subject

http://parlyreportsa.co.za//bee/employment-equity-amendment-bill-looks-set-easy-passage/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za//bee/court-ruling-equity-quotas-affects-bee/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za//labour/employment-equity-bill-criminalises-offenders/

B-BBEE Codes of Practice far more onerous….

The final Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Codes of Good Practice (Codes) have been published. Companies will be granted a one-year transitional period to align with and prepare for the implementation of the revised Codes.

Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies has stated that the amended codes are a “new beginning” aligned to government’s transformation ambitions and follow a period of much debate and which were earlier released in October last year.

The revised codes deliver a reduction of elements, from seven to five, within the generic scorecard, comprising ownership, skills development, enterprise and supplier development, management control and socioeconomic development, and changes to the points required for compliance.

The codes set the minimum requirement for ownership at 40% of net value, with skills development accounting for 40% of the total weighting points, and enterprise and supplier development required a subminimum requirement of 40% within each enterprise and supplier development element, namely preferential procurement, supplier development and enterprise development.

Now five elements

All companies, barring micro enterprises, will be required to comply with the five elements of the B-BBEE scorecard including  all organs of state and public entities; and  “natural or juristic persons who conduct a business, trade or profession in South Africa, which undertakes any economic activity with organs of state or public entities.”

There is an increased threshold in points required to achieve a better B-BBEE status and exempted micro enterprises have now a threshold of R10m and general companies, known as QSEs, have a range of R10m to R50m.

On the new enterprise and supplier development enterprises totalling 40 points, 23 points are required as black ownership majority. Procurement is down to 12 points, of which only five points relate to all suppliers with black economic empowerment credentials, three points to qualifying small enterprise suppliers and four points for exempt micro enterprises with a 15% target each.

No help to importers

Commentators have pointed out that many companies acquire total, or at least most of their imported goods on international markets and this will place them a complete disadvantage. The amended codes outline in much more clarity that large companies are required to comply with all three priority scorecard elements – namely ownership, skills development and enterprise and supplier development.
Refer to articles in this category
http://parlyreportsa.co.za//bee/bee-comes-under-scrutiny/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za//bee/turnover-fines-employment-equity-breaches/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za//bee/mprda-bill-causes-contention-parliament/
http://parlyreportsa.co.za//bee/new-b-bbee-bill-avoids-circumvention-of-the-law/

B-BBEE legislation needs overhaul…

Director General Lionel October led the department of trade and industry’s (DTI) presentation on the new B-BBEE Amendment Bill  to the portfolio committee on trade and industry, stating that the anchor BEE legislation in place for some ten years badly needed a “proper mechanism to support the actual implementation of black empowerment and methods to deal with non-compliance and circumvention”.

He said the new changes resulted mainly from the work of the President’s Special Advisory Council charged with investigation into the areas where monitoring, evaluation and reporting were clearly ineffective, resulting in a need and to introduce penalties and criminalise those who purposely made false declarations.

Maximum penalty only set by Bill

The Bill, he said, set the maximum penalty but it was up to the courts to set penalties according to circumstances’.

The purposes of the new Bill was to give further effect to the aims and objects of black empowerment legislation, said October, and especially to improve monitoring and evaluation of SA business and industry on the subject; strengthen access to procurement opportunities for black business with focus on opportunities; and funding to improve the technical capacity of the verification industry.

NEDLAC, BUSA, Black Business Council and government departments had been consulted, including all departments in the economic and employment “cluster”, he said.

Most agree changes needed

October said that public hearings had also been conducted. On the whole, these  submissions in broad principle had supported the necessity for amending legislation with a certain number of changes being acknowledged as badly needed, mainly because of misunderstandings particularly in the area of verification and scoring and to clear up a number of unintended consequences of the original Act.

Nomande Mesatywa, chief director of B-BBEE at DTI, told parliamentarians that the objectives of the Bill were to line up other legislation impacting on B-BBEE and also to line up with the Codes of Good Practice.

The Bill established a B-BBEE Commission to monitor and evaluate black empowerment as practised; to deal with non-compliance issues and circumvention and give effect to government policy on the issue of black business empowerment.

Material amendments included a whole number of key definitions and re-definitions and matters regarding the establishment of the B-BBEE commission office.

MPs complain of racial bias

A number of MPs complained that definitions included that of black persons, defining them as black, coloured and Indian, which was simply re-introducing racially based legislation based on skin colour.

October said DG had no option but to follow procurement legislation where the scorecard used such determinations. He said that South Africa was not returning to such levels as had been practiced “in the bad years” but it was now the option or choice of business in terms of a scorecard system whether to do business with government or not.

He said that South Africa was not like Malaysia or Zimbabwe where only nationals of a certain skin colour or nationality could do business with government.

MPs still disagreed with DTI and said not only was the legislation racially based but it disenfranchised white persons from an opportunity that was their constitutional right.

Furthermore, there was a differential between national and foreign business where one’s nationality was prejudicial in dealing with government on tenders and this was bad for investors to see and contributed to the idea that South Africa was unfriendly to foreign investors.

Fronting the main problem

Again, DTI rejected such notions stated by opposition MPs, October defending the proposals in that the B-BBEE legislation before them was mainly aimed at those attempted to defeat the regulations on “fronting” and by supplying false information when submitting scorecard facts. It also remained purely an option for business whether it wished to comply or not with the scorecard system when applying for government business, which he confirmed amounted to some 45% of GDP.

He concluded that it was important for government to have a B-BBEE commissioner as a party to investigate, regulate and impose penalties on those who wished to defeat the purpose of the legislation and who wished to counter government policy on the necessity to empower middle class black development; black small business development and therefore improve the black contribution to GDP.

Fronting control not passive participation is aim…..

Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has published a notice stating that it has tabled a Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Amendment Bill before Parliament, the eradication of “fronting” being perceived as one of the main objectives of the proposals.

In a statement released at the time, the amendments seek amongst other things to establish a B-BBEE commission “to deal with compliance” in respect of B-BBEE-related legislation and  strengthen compliance-related monitoring and evaluation and providing for offences and a maximum penalty.

On the issue of fronting, DTI have referred to in a number of documents issued by the department, although by now suggesting criminalization of the issue a clearer legal definition is going to have to be found, commentators have noted. DTI in the past has said that any process of black participation in business must result in an increase in the ownership and control of the economy by black persons.

The BEE  scorecard currently being used by business gives points for direct empowerment which focuses on black ownership of enterprises and assets through shares and other instruments that provide the holder thereof with voting rights and economic benefits, such as dividends or interest payments.

Control means, according to DTI in their BEE statements, the right or the ability to direct or otherwise control the majority of the votes attaching to the shareholder’s issued shares; to appoint or remove directors holding a majority of voting rights at meetings of the board of directors of that shareholder and the right to control the management of that shareholder.

DTI has been particularly vocal on the subject that passive ownership by black people is in itself not sufficient to bring about “transformation” or where investors have very little control over the direction of investment decisions made by fund managers. Such passive ownership of enterprises can also lead to a form of ‘fronting’ “and this needs to be guarded against”, says DTI.

Minister of trade and industry, Dr Rob Davies, has referred to this matter and further consequences of the new Bill in a number of DTI press statements recently and conferences he has addressed.

The Bill also contains more regulations to control B-BBEE verification agencies involving an independent regulatory board of auditors is also part of the minister’s proposals contained in the Bill and the provision or creation of incentive schemes to support black-owned business. The Bill is notable in that it follows the BEE scorecard principle of specifically defining a “black person” as Africa, Coloured or Indian.

A draft bill was published for comment and no doubt the portfolio committee on trade and industry will announce public hearings before the committee in the new parliamentary session of 2013. The Bill as tabled is available on the DTI website.

In a recently gazetted publication, the sector charter and broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) code for the information and communication technology (ICT) sector were published by the department of trade and industry (DTI).

According to a media statement published by DTI’s minister Dr Rob Davies, a 30% black ownership target has been set for entities in the sector, the ICT sector charter having much in common with DTI’s generic BBBEE code. However, the equity equivalent target for qualifying multinationals is 30%, this being 5% higher than the target in the generic code and similar to the new property sector charter .

The ICT charter, the statement says, “features a target of 5% net profit after tax to be spent on enterprise development initiatives aimed at growing and developing black-owned ICT enterprises”. The target for the generic codes is 3% net profit after tax.

The gazette also states that a spend of 1.5% net profit after tax is the target on socio-economic development initiatives, as distinct from 1% net profit after tax in the standard BBBEE code.

Communications minister, Dina Pule, will work towards establishing an ICT charter council within the framework of the much troubled charter, she said separately, to monitor the implementation of both the charter and the new BBBEE code for the ICT industry.