Paul Janisch

The old SED code remains - the DTI withdraws code 500

Withdrawal of Statement 500 of the Revised BBB-EE Codes of Good Practice

The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) announces the withdrawal of Statement 500 of gazette number 35754 issued on 5 October 2012- Revised Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice.

The decision comes after several stakeholders expressed concern that Statement 500 has been interpreted to mean that charities will be adversely affected, resulting in rising anxiety for charity and beneficiary organisations. The fact that the dti announced previously that the department will not “raise the bar” and correct any unintended interpretation upon completion of the public consultation period closes on Wednesday, 5 December 2012, has not eased this anxiety. The department therefore concluded that withdrawing the Statement immediately would be the most appropriate response.

In practice this means no change to the Socio Economic Developments elements.

via www.thedti.gov.za

This is a great effort from the NPO sector. However about a quarter of the battle has been fought. Don't forget that the codes are still impossible to implement and as such will still negatively affect charitable causes.

BEE Bill formally introduced to Parliament today

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment [B42–2012]

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• Bill 42 - Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment

Bill Version: 

B42-2012

Effective Date: 

27 Nov 2012

Document Attachment: 

Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment [B42–2012]

via www.pmg.org.za

It looks a little different to the draft we saw last year

New BBBEE codes will harm the poor and marginalised - COLLEEN DU TOIT

What would South Africa look like if the nonprofit sector was destroyed or was drastically weakened?

Before even considering the social development and welfare contributions, policy makers in both government and business should be considering that the sector is a huge employer — according to the latest available research, it is second only to the mining sector as an employer.

However, a recent GreaterGood survey of funding and employment completed by 690 organisations within the civil society sector revealed that more than 80% of organisations have experienced significant funding cuts during the past year.

More than 43% of the sample have retrenched staff, resulting in a 17% contraction of employment in the sector.

According to the latest Trialogue research, the corporate sector is currently the largest funder of the sector, providing about R7bn in the 2011-12 financial year.

The implementation of this draft code in its present form will spell disaster for the collaborative developmental relations that have evolved over years between nonprofit organisations and their corporate funders.

Does the Department of Trade and Industry really want to provoke yet more negative international press for South African business and the government?

via www.bdlive.co.za

Colleen makes an incredibly powerful point here about the non-profit sector being a huge employer.  Not only does it employ many people but a lot of volunteers are working for NPOs and charities just to gain experience in the workplace.  You'd do well to read the whole article.

Yet the Mazwais of this world misguidedly continue to sing the new codes' praises.  But you have to take this from whence it comes - Mazwai does not have to implement them.  This is business's problem.  It alarms me that a man of such recognised intellect and foresight cannot see the wood for the trees.  We'll just have to show him.

I did a presentation yesterday at a thinktank that was hosted by Glocell and the Acorn Foundation.  There are a number of very influential charities that have made the use of Werksmans to submit comments to Rob.  They are very concerned about these codes and the ditch that Rob Davies is driving this country into.

Here's the presentation.

The Fish and Chip ad that the SABC banned

Read more about it here.  Apparently the SABC banned it unilaterally.  Here's to free advertising for Taste Holdings.

Official FSC now available

In case you were wondering when we would see this thing being gazetted - here it is from an incredibly reliable source.  It's still not up on the DTI's website.

By the way, in case you read the shockingly inaccurate report in the pro-government New Age last week .  This document is not 10 years old, it is substantially different to the original.  It is based on what the FSC affectionately called the "Kevin Lester draft" which drew an incredible amount of inspiration from the 2007 codes.

You've got to love this quote

The New Age has learnt that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has sent the 10-year-old version of the FSC for gazetting without adjusting controversial features that have caused discomfort in many quarters. These features include the controversial once empowered, always empowered principle, and the lower black ownership target which were favoured by the banking industry.

Here's the original FSC - you decide whether the New Age report is at all accurate.  I don't think that this version will be up for very long.

 

 

James at one – I don’t fancy the cake’s chances here.

It's hard to believe that a year has passed since James decided to join our family. I struggle to believe that he's now one year old, he's such an established part of my life that I can barely remember what it was like when we were just three people.

One of our concerns was how his elder brother would take to him. We should never have worried, James looks up to Oliver and Oliver has taken the responsibility of being the elder brother very seriously. We really believe that James calls for Oliver in Jamespeak – something like AHVA. I had forgotten how busy a crawling baby can keep you. He is so quick at getting around the house that you lose him, "where's James" is a common exclamation in the house. The chances are he's approaching the most dangerous staircase in Joburg which is probably nowhere near where we live. He's also had his fair share of falls and bangs and has shrugged them off and learned from the experience. And then there is the laugh………

When James giggles it sends the whole house into hysterics, most of the time this is because his brother is egging him on (something to look out for when these two are in highschool). He's about two steps away from walking and then the real exercise starts.  

Well James, it's been a fantastic year. You've slotted into this family so perfectly and established your position quite firmly. We love you very much and now we start preparing ourselves for the terrible twos in a year's time.

Let's not stray from tradition. James' nominated musician is James Phillips whose music should be on the lips of every South African (just as Rodriguez is). This track was taken off his Sunny Skies album which was a political statement against the apartheid government – it's tragic that this song is still relevant under the ANC government.

02 - James Phillips - (Sing No More) Lovesongs

 

And another James track. Perhaps a little obvious but a beautiful track nevertheless

Sweet Baby James - 01 - Sweet Baby James - 2.53

 

 Happy birthday JimJam from your Mom, Dad, Oliver, Thuli and Shona.  We love you very much

Startling education statistics

South Africa has one of the worst unemployment and youth unemployment rates in the world, but it is the poor education of those between the ages of 18 and 24 that is most troubling. More than 70% of the about 3-million people in this group do not even have a Grade 12. Is it any surprise the unemployment rate for young people is close to 50%?

via www.bdlive.co.za

Scary. And no transformation policy is every going to fix this.

FSC has been gazetted!!!!!

If you don't believe me then take a look at this notice.  Thank you for sending it to me Mr O'Neil.

I haven't got the final gazetted codes but I've got a wide number of drafts.  

It is speculated that Rob has pushed this one out to take heat off him for the new codes.  I know that Nedbank will be now focusing on the FSC for the next verification but they have assured me that they are still going to submit their comments to the DTI on the new codes.  I think that have a legitimate concern here because if the codes go through in their current guise and this is very possible because Rob is known to bulldoze things through, then it will be a matter of time before the FSC needs to be aligned to the new codes.

We've got about two weeks to submit our comments - please try not to attack the DTI, Rob and his adviser goons personally, it will be counter productive.           You can leave that to me.

Oops - have we ruffled the DTI's feathers a little.

The Revised BEE Codes of Good Practice are not Intended to make things difficult

2012-11-16  

The draft codes have elicited widespread support but the department has received feedback expressing alarm that some charitable organisations and beneficiaries will lose benefits associated with the current version of the BEE Codes.  This is not true. The proposed socio- economic development (SED) code encourages charitable organisations who receive CSI funding as a result of BEE policy, to ensure that their beneficiaries are representative of South African Society.
 
the dti therefore wishes to reassure all parties concerned that the intention of the proposed Code is not to raise the bar or make it more difficult for current CSI beneficiaries to score BEE points.

It is however evident from the comments received that the current drafting of the SED Code has led to incorrect perceptions that it is the intention to raise the bar or to prejudice certain individuals. This is not the intention and will be explicitly clarified in the final draft.

via www.thedti.gov.za

Now where has this widespread support come from? Is it from those who have to implement it? I have my absolute doubts. It must have come from those who stand to benefit from it the most. As Percy's presentation points out, more points are allocated to even fewer people.

Then there is the almost bewildered sentiment - "we didn't mean to cause this much harm, really we didn't. We just wrote it in such a way that you would have serious doubts about what we meant. And then if you said nothing we would have been proved right. Of course it's not for us to actually read what we write so you really shouldn't have taken it as badly as you have."

And then they put in this line which negates the whole press release.  Apparently anyone who isn't black does not form part of South African society.  How idiotic is this - and these are the people who have been tasked with the transformation of South Africa.  

The proposed socio- economic development (SED) code encourages charitable organisations who receive CSI funding as a result of BEE policy, to ensure that their beneficiaries are representative of South African Society.

Sometimes you are silenced by objectivity - download this presentation

Up until now all the posts on this blog have been very subjective and often emotional. I have been very fortunate to be given this presentation by King Percy Abelkop. Percy is a pseudonym - as if you didn't know. He's also not involved in the BEE industry which makes his objectivity is most welcome. I will say that his conclusions are similar to mine which makes posting this presentation much easier.

This is the kind of presentation that we used to see in the early days when there was a real depth of skill in this industry. It shows a mature level of understanding and interestingly includes a wide variety of statistics that would have been very useful to the DTI had they actually conducted some research on the current status of the codes. Percy argues that there has not been enough research into the current state of BEE, in fact he shows that the EmpowerDex graph that Rob has in his presentation shows an improvement across the scorecard. That Rob didn't notice this when he made his presentation cannot come as a surprise.

He concludes with this sentence

(The) Revised Codes comes across as a thinly veiled attempt perpetuate benefit extraction for elites

This is the same sentiment that I expressed in a prior post. I got the idea for this post from Percy - who laughed over the phone at the lamentable emphasis on addressing real issues and the extension of the wealth of the elite.

A few significant Percy points

• Number of individual shareholders in the economy is unknown – surely you do this research before you start reviewing codes. How has BEE improved ownership participation? If so, by how much?
• The insistence on value-adding suppliers is an attempt to prevent tenderpreneurism.
• Skills Development, in its natural form, benefits only the employed - 13.3 million (41% of Working Age Population)
• Because it is measured primarily based on Rand spend, it favours the upper quartile of that base because higher order skills are more expensive

He concludes with this slide

Please download the presentation and use it in your interaction with the DTI.