Do we need to be concerned about what Rob and the souls are the DTI are sprouting from their mouths, especially when it comes to enterprise development?
The first thing I paid attention to was Rob muttering "companies would have to be actively involved in fostering small businesses" in April this year. I thought this was the stupidest idea ever (amidst all the competition for stupid ideas), and I have not changed my opinion on this. However it has now found a close competitor.
This quote is attributed to Sipho Zikode who is the deputy director-general for empowerment and enterprise development at the DTI. He mentioned this at the launch of the NEF's ED plan (which we need to approach with a great deal of caution).
Zikode gave warning at the launch that there were proposals to increase the requirements of the scorecard. He aimed his warning specifically at so-called qualifying small enterprises. We have found that some of these companies quote things they were going to do anyway as part of their empowerment efforts and claim that as a credit for participation in the transformation of the economy"
And then threatened us with
"That is why there is a proposal now that all seven elements will have to apply (to these companies too)."
Let's go back to the first paragraph, it's quite clear that he is referring to enterprise development (he was after all speaking at an ED launch). Is he saying that ED should be extraneous to your business - like Rob is suggesting. In other words if you do do something that benefits both your business and the ED beneficiary but it is linked to your business you can't claim the points. That's how I read this.
This is quite simply ludicrous. And again it demonstrates how little the DTI understands both capitalism and how BEE might grow the economy. Which of course should not come a surprise considering that Rob is a serious player in the SACP.
But then who are we as the people who actually pay the taxes that fund the tenderpreneurs and other scam artists to tell the DTI how to go about BEE et al. What the fuck, we'll try anyway even though we know that we will be continuously threatened with more onerous policies, taxes and other types of blackmail, for so-called "lack of transformation". Never once has the DTI actually recognised the BEE strides that the private sector has made in the last four years - it's always another threat and another law. What the DTI should do is claim (undeserved) credit for what has been done - maybe that's the converse approach.
And so, as a result of a clear lack of understanding, the DTI is going to make compliance even more onerous. The upshot will be that scores will drop dramatically. If this should happen I will go on a single person crusade to educate the larger corporates that they cannot expect such great scores under procurement because the DTI have now made it twice as difficult to comply with a concept that they barely understand.
Comments