KPMG surveys whilst ABVA gets the moer in

There has been a fair amount of BEE activity over the last few weeks.  We all know that narrow-based BEE is now over, kaput, klaar and finish.  What we don't know is whether the FSC shares a similar fate - it appears that they have been given a stay of execution.  And then there is the keenly awaited DTI assessment tool which was supposed to be launched last Monday (the link to the Business Day site is broken so you'll have to take my word for it).  I can't wait to see it and I have it on some authority that we will see it next week.

And then ABVA starts questioning why SANAS has put the verification process on hold.  And so they should, accreditation will add so much more legitimacy to BEE.  Vuyo thinks that it's not a bad idea that they have extended it because they now need to measure them against that stupid manual that they published.  I noted with interest Vuyo's comment about the complexities of verification

The potential downside effect of the manual is that the prescribed procedures require adequate capacity. This lengthens the time spent on the verification process, affecting the profitability of the agency. Gone are the days when a big company could be verified in two days.

Trust me - this is not a good thing for the industry.

OK back to ABVA, Kim sent me this story.  I'm going to focus on a small from Abva director Ridwana Jooma-Cook  quote in the article,

"In effect, the codes of good practice are fantastic, but they have failed on implementation."

What rubbish is this, the codes are definitely not  fantastic.  They are a terrible concoction of inflexibility, lack of thought, bad business sense, poor spelling and worse arithmetic.  But that's my opinion.

Which brings me to the KPMG survey.  I read about it here and was drawn in by the opening paragraph

Companies across the board are falling behind on their black economic empowerment (BEE) compliance, a survey by forensic auditing firm KPMG has found

The report is very good and thorough and asks some very poignant  questions and produces some interesting results it makes for an interesting read.  I think the results are quite obvious in certain places, for instance the mining sector will place more emphasis on ownership because they have to.  But I do not agree with the contention that a scorecard makes a company more competitive and I think we are a long way from that happening.  A scorecard is still a tick box requirement, companies do not purchase from companies that have high scorecards, especially strategic items, they purchase for numerous other reasons ranging from price to relationships.  The scorecard just gets the messy empowerment criteria out of the way. 

And as a final note - I wrote this for the Namibian Economist .  Namibia are in the early stages of their own BEE implementation and they could learn a fair amount from South Africa.  The article discusses where South Africa needs to improve if this policy is to succeed.