And so that was Christmas and what have we done, another year over and a new one just begun. No prizes for guessing where that line was pinched from.
It's a new year - I should have reflected on 2007 a little while ago. I was at home with my family (a two month old son, a wife and numerous cats) and getting into being a parent. I started the whole parent thing quite late in life and it has taken a bit of getting used to less sleep. He likes Peter Green, the Beatles, Duster Bennett, Robert Johnson, Joe Walsh - or my versions of their songs.
Back to the retrospectacle.
What was 2007?
We got the codes
At long last. All the big corporates had started insisting scorecards that were based on a form of vapourware. The only advantage of the earlier drafts was that we knew roughly what we had to measure. It was therefore possible to produce a scorecard based on the previous year's performance. And that was the good part.
The codes are fraught with grammatical, typographical and other errors. At least the pages are numbered correctly. It's hard to believe that the DTI could attempt to fob us off with such a half-arsed attempt at "transformation". They then rectified these errors with an interpretative guide and guidelines. They helped - sort of like how an aspirin might be used as a general anaesthetic.
Nevertheless we got them.
We got a few charters too
The FSC and Construction sector charter were also gazetted under section 12.
Financial sector charter
I have done a lot of work on the FSC - and I understand where it comes from. In most cases those companies using the FSC have modified some of the interpretations using the codes. It is apparently on its way to a section 9 gazetting - it just seems that the Treasury and the dti can't agree on a few issues. The treasury are a bit concerned about the ownership targets because they do put the whole financial sector at risk when it comes to guarantees. The ideologically bent dti want their 25 % direct ownership. Treasury argues
If they had to follow the broad-based black economic empowerment codes, ownership targets would change significantly. While it is better to have 25% black ownership than 15%, this is not necessarily true for banks, which, in terms of regulations, must have shareholders who can pump in cash should the bank falter. Alternatively, banks cannot be exposed to extra risk through their shareholders.
The section 9 gazetting eludes us still.
And the construction charter?
A convoluted and unintelligible mess that people in the construction industry can apparently understand. All I can figure out is that there are effectively eight different scorecards. The problem with this charter is that they have not published adequate explanations of each element.
And then there is the property charter.
They tell us it has been gazetted under section 12 but the dti haven't posted it on their website and the SAPOA website doesn't seem to have it either. A ghost has no properties you know.
We got the great ABVA/SANAS debate
There are NO accredited verification agencies. None, fokol, nyet, nada etc. ABVA are understandably flexing their muscles insisting that verification be only performed by ABVA members. Some have taken great exception to this but have gone nowhere.
I am reliably informed that accreditation is not far away. I hope that business sees the ridiculousness of insisting on an accredited verification agency - there are about 900 000 entities that need some form of rating, whether it be an EME or generic, and there is no way that 30 odd agencies are going to get to these.
Say no to Telkom
The first equity equivalents were awarded and Telkom reportedly refuses to accept them. I've had years of experience with Telkom and their plain uncompetitive and unfair tactics and they are rapidly diminishing their own usefulness. MTN is installing its own fibre because Telkom is too incompetent to deliver.
I think we should band together and approach some legal support and take Telkom to court over this issue. They are a major public entity in terms of schedule 1 of the PFMA and they choose to discriminate against non-black owned businesses. I'll see if I can get the guys from Gauteng Business onto this.
And now for 2008
Narrow-based BEE finishes in a month
If you have a narrow-based scorecard, it expires on the 9th of Feb this year. Get a new one now - save you having to wait (ask Obed de Swardt for a good deal).
More charters will be gazetted, or will they?
I tendered to develop one for the aerospace industry, it's been put on hold for a few months, largely because jungle jim reckons there are too many charters. Kevin Lester is of the opinion that there will be a trend toward the generic codes - we'll see. The more charters there are the more exciting my business it.
jungle jim might become CEO of Tiger Brands
It could happen - maybe they'll give it to him to shut him up. I found an hysterical analysis of jungle's so called full time job. The term they use for his daytime job is "moonlighting".
One thing is for sure - he is going to carry on shooting his mouth off without being vaguely concerned about the consequences. I hope he does - I do love writing about him.
The PPPFA and BBBEE will no longer be estranged
But then again - maybe they will.
The deals will flow
We'll see many more deals than last year. All of them will have the so-called broad-based components which will provide the orphans of the kleilat victims with a dividend payout of about R33/year. And they'll be allowed to sell those shares in 10 years time and realise a grand total of R333 for their ownership. But at least they own something.
More BEE courses will be offered
Most will rehash the boring subject of deal structuring to mom and pop shops. I would like to see a course that looks at practical implementation from structuring an equity equivalent programme through to a practical implementation of enterprise development.
Kevin, should we organise something like this, we could ask Louise to speak at it?
Transformation will still not be quick enough
It won't. We will make some progress - but not enough for the dissatisfied people that I speak to on a regular basis. Maybe the urban guerrilla will do something to speed this process up if it is in fact possible to do something about it (I don't think it is).
I am actually very optimistic
I think this is going to be a good year. I don't think we can take much more of the crime and we'll see some progress in eradicating it - whether that be a better police force or a covert and organised vigilante movement.
Let's go off and enjoy it.
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