Well not exactly, but he's not known to mince his words. Mr Gleason and I had a few chats over the last couple of days about these BEE codes and he published a lovely article in his Torque column in Business Day today. I love what he writes especially when he deals with Rob
Whatever he turns his hand to, it turns into a problem. There was that arbitrary decision to terminate bilateral trading treaties with important partners, which earned us a sharp admonition from the European Union’s trade commissioner. There was his gross failure to talk sense into his Communist Party pal, Irvin Jim, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, who went on to sabotage the economy in three easy moves.
Now Davies has gazetted amendments to the black economic empowerment (BEE) codes, which, depending on how you interpret the slovenly wording, are either to take effect now or in a year’s time.
And Davies is good at ignoring the thoughts and suggestions of others. In fact, given an argument between a hard place and Davies, the hard place is the easier option. To my knowledge, after the draft codes were published in October a year ago, he received more than 500 submissions. Those from throwaway constituents such as Anglo American, Business Unity South Africa, Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa, Solidarity and others of that ilk appear to have been ignored. Davies has listened only to the small cabal he draws around him, the sycophants who don’t gainsay him.
He’s just gone ahead and done what he intended all along.
It's almost impossible to put it any better.
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