Paul Janisch

Intervention coming in mining sector - includes the Mining Charter annual assessment

The other areas identified as requiring immediate intervention were: the annual assessment of the mining charter; the socio-economic conditions of workers and the areas where mines operate; the identification of long-term policy measures to end uncertainty about sector regulations and tax.

via www.iol.co.za

And on this subject - I heard from a source that mining companies don't report on spend with multinationals at all.

By the way - when you read the whole article you'll notice that there is little urgency to these "action points".

Mining Charter and multinational suppliers – can anyone help me with this problem?

There is a little dilemma facing a client of mine who is a multinational and a supplier to Anglo. The BBSEE Charter has these targets for procurement

Description	Measure	Compliance Target by 2014
Procurement spent from BEE Entity	Capital Goods	40%
	Services	70%
	Consumable goods	50%
Multinational suppliers contribution to the social fund	Annual spend on procurement from multinational suppliers	0.5% of procurement value

The dilemma is this:

1. Does Anglo have a definition for multinationals?
2. The Charter is clear that multinationals who supply capital goods must contribute 0.5% of the procurement value to the social fund (which I assume would be Anglo's social fund). What happens with consumable or consumer goods that a multinational supplies? I can see a few possible options

 

• They are regarded as non-discretionary spend and therefore eliminated from the procurement calculation
• They are lumped in with capital goods and the multinational contributes that amount to the social fund as well.

And the real problem is that Anglo can't answer my questions and I've asked a few people in Anglo about this. What I have heard is that Anglo does not report on the multinational spend and they don't know what this social fund is – although my reading of the Mining Charter suggests that each mining house has their own social fund.

Harmony in their 2012 annual report have the following to say about both the social fund and multinational suppliers

with the definition of a multinational supplier now established, Harmony will negotiate participation with relevant suppliers and develop an appropriate system to track these commitments.

But they don't elaborate as to what this multinational is – so I suppose we can use any acceptable definition. A common feature in every definition is a company this is headquartered in one country with a subsidiary in at least one other country. The B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice define a multinational as a "Measured Entity with a business in the Republic of South Africa and elsewhere which maintains its international headquarters outside the Republic."

We know that the mining companies are putting more pressure on their suppliers to meet the definition of a BEE supplier – take a look at this Kumba letter from last September, but they do not make allowances for multinationals.

Is there anyone out there in the interland who can help me with this problem?

Zoomer transcends and BEE is the consequence

Transcend sent out an email today saying (and no I'm not putting up a hyperlink to this –they are my competition)

It is rumoured that the Revised BBBEE Codes will be gazetted as soon as July 2013, yes that's right, next month. Now the Dti could always delay this and only release them toward the end of the year, but this is what we have heard, Having said this we will be planning public sessions for you to understand the impact of the revised BBBEE Codes...

And then Zoomer told parliament today that

the government planned a shake-up of its "black economic empowerment" policies aimed at redressing the imbalances of white-minority apartheid rule.

Are the two linked in anyway? The shake-up of the laws does not specifically mean the codes. But you have to love the reference to "white minority apartheid rule". This is the rhetoric of the incorruptible and competent ANC government for the next election. If you had any doubt as to where the Black Business Council's allegiances lie then look no further than Zungrabber's comment in a Stephen Grootes article from a few weeks ago.

The real reason the Black Business Council (BBC) exists is because its members are "economic apartheid fighters", says general secretary Sandile Zungu.

But what makes this little group of disgruntled whiners so unique is that they seem to have realised that the private sector sees them for the players they are and so they are only focusing on state business.

My fuck Zoomer – what a fantastic legacy you have already started preparing for yourself. The racial polarising of the country is probably the least of your conquests but one that is going to take the longest to repair.

Canadian employment equity – their version of black is called visible minority

Courtesy of the Globe and Mail

In Canada, anyone who considers themself neither white nor aboriginal is classified by the government as a visible minority. It is an artificial concept that has become unnecessary and counterproductive.

Ultimately, the dividing line is arbitrary. For example, Arabic people from North Africa and the Middle East are counted as "white" in the U.S. Census. Yet anyone who ticks the Arab box on Canada's National Household Survey is counted as a visible minority – unless they tick both the white box and the Arab box. Then they're white. Indeed, there is something almost racist about the assumption that whites are the standard against which anyone else is noticeably, visibly different. That may be why the United Nations Council on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has asked Canada to reflect upon its use of the term visible minority.

The Canadian government's official line is that the term is needed to support programs that promote equal opportunity. Visible minorities are one of four groups covered by the federal Employment Equity Act. (The others are women, people with disabilities, and aboriginal Canadians). The Act requires employers to remove barriers to employment facing members those four groups, and to "correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment."

While promoting equity is a good thing, the Employment Equity Act does so with too broad a brush. It lumps all visible minority groups together, instead of focusing on those who really are actually struggling in the labour market. As Justice Rosalie Abella wrote 30 years ago, when she chaired the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment:

"To combine all non-whites together as visible minorities for the purpose of devising systems to improve their equitable participation, without making distinctions to assist those groups in particular need, may deflect attention from where the problems are greatest."

Can you imagine if we had an EE Act that addressed employment issues on the basis of skills' deficit and not the Manyi-ite "economically active population". Imagine if it included all who were poor and without hope. Dream on mate, the ANC government lacks the will, competence, creativity and maturity to dream up anything as equitable as that.

Tolling is good for the economy - SANRAL propaganda

Tolling pays. That is the simple truth – it makes transport easier, boosts economic growth and individual businesses. And makes travelling more pleasant for private citizens.

via www.moneyweb.co.za

But wait, there's more to this. Don't you just dig "Most important is that for each rand of cost, initial capital works, on-going maintenance and costs, society benefits by R8.40."

What Vusi Mona does not mention that the toll roads will stretch an already cash-strapped middle class even further than is vaguely reasonable. This stretching will have a direct benefit on the working classes because prices will need to go up to accommodate this and it's possible that those people that are employed by the middle class in their homes etc will no longer be affordable.

No Vusi - this propaganda is not convincing. In fact it made me pay OUTA a little more than I planned to.