ABVAndalism

Has the battle been won, and if so where is the war going to take us to?  Stephen Timm wrote an article in Business Report last week telling us that "Abva was 'wrong' in insisting that business owners who supply corporates must have a verified agency rating."   Thanks to everyone who sent me an email about this article.

But I don't think we should leave it at that.  ABVA's management and leadership have behaved shockingly under the circumstances.  They have hurriedly published a response to Timm's article in today's Business Report (thanks Colin).  In this response they maintain their innocence as an association.

I want to talk about a few things in this last report - and it probably is best to go back chronologically.

1. The controversial draft document that started this mess reveals some very interesting information.  I was chatting to a colleague who pointed out that the document's properties reveal the author to be "cwu".  I noticed this but thought it might be some institution.   But closer inspection suggests that this might be C Wu, more specifically Chia-Chao Wu.  Is it that Chia-Chao wrote a document that the DTI were to regard as policy?  If this is the case then it is not even vaguely surprising that self-verification would be banned because an Empowerdex director has written the document.  This is in stark contrast with the sentiment  Vuyo Jack expressed in his book - (w)hen the dti task team [who put the codes together] addressed any issue about verification agencies and the verification process, Empowerdex removed itself from the process in acknowledgment of the conflict of interest. broad-based BEE - The Complete Guide page 78.
2. When I read the email from BEE Rating Solutions I emailed Bernard van der Walt immediately telling him I was going to go for him in this blog.  He responded with this email.  There is a bit of information missing from the mail itself, but it does suggest that Bernard asked a few people from ABVA in late February whether he could sent out this notice.  And Theo Lombard responded that it was acceptable.  Now take a look at Timm's article again.  In it he writes that "yesterday Lombard claimed not to have seen the [BEE Rating Solutions']e-mail".  When you read this with the ABVA response (written by Ridwana Jooma-Cook) you'll see more anomalies, specifically the e-mail sent by an Abva member in this regard was against departmental guidelines issued in October and was drafted prior to the recent meeting with the department. Abva instructed the member on March 12 to refrain from sending out any further communication in this regard. 
3.  There is something wrong here.  It seems as though BEE Rating Solutions is being used as a Judasbok (I can't find a definition of this word but it is the animal that leads all the other animals into the execution chamber in an abattoir.  The Judasbok itself is not slaughtered).  If the email had been successful then ABVA wins, if not Bernard takes the rap alone.  I would expect a lot more from an association that I was involved with.

So we come back to where we were in February last year.  The only rule that applies to any form of verification is that the verification has  to be  backed up  by "suitable  evidence".   And  it is quite likely that companies  that choose to verify themselves are able to produce  "suitable evidence".  I don't expect verification agencies to end up getting less work because of this - companies will always want someone to do this for them.  But there really needs to be a shake-up within the executive of ABVA.   

Bring Vuyo back
Perhaps it is time to get Vuyo Jack back into the business.  He is highly respected and is regarded as a pioneer.  He also has the ear of both government and business.  On top of it he co-wrote the definitive guide to BEE.

Vuyo - would you consider an executive position at ABVA?  I also think we need to see people on that board who are within the industry but are not verification agencies.  Perhaps someone like Kevin Lester or Robin Woolley, I'll sit on this board if I am asked.

By the way
I gave Theo a chance to respond to emails I sent him and he hasn't yet (in fact he has not responded to a single email I have sent him in the last three years.   I somehow think he's not going to respond to any ever).

Comments

[Kevin Lester]

I am far too antagonistic towards ABVA to serve on any structure Paul, but I endorse your call for Vuyo to return to the role of visionary and thought leadership in BEE. I also endorse your call for a role for my partner Robin Woolley who is unquestionably one of the most professional and ethical business consultants in the country. Based on the content of your blog, vision, leadership, professionalism and ethics all appear to be values that ABVA has difficulty engaging with.
But ABVA should not stand alone in the dock! Where is this SANAS crowd in all of this? Paul, everyone gives them a whole bunch of latitude because of their techincal credentials and their accomplishments in the other areas. But lets ask the question, who have these people ever spoken to about Verification and accreditation other than the DTI and ABVA. I know of no BEE consultant other than William Janisch to whom they have ever spoken, and I suspect that the only reason they spoke to him was because his erstwhile company was appointed to faciliate between them and the BEE Verification industry. Most of the time, they have merely served as a convenient shield behind which ABVA could mobilise their 'closed-shop' view on self assesment. Frankly, the constant defence built around the supremacy of the ISO standards by which they are governed has often struck me as being hollow! Their willful neglect of a thorough consultative process with all stakeholders suggests to me that their impartiality (or at least their professionalism) in this affair must be called into question!
As a final comment, have you noticed the regulatory hierarchy in the ABVA document that omits the Constitution of the Republic and the Bill of Rights? Let me not sound over dramatic, but I am shocked to the core!