This is in spite of the fact that I am Twitter illiterate but what the hell, so is our esteemed Persecuted president (he's just plain illiterate – see the picture below). How about #beeecodesmustfall or perhaps more accurately #revisedbeeecodesmustfall. Me being the Twidiot I am, I have no idea how to create such a #; these # are sharps in music and E has five of them. This is a post I've been wanting to post for a while, there's been too much mind altering turmoil over the last few months that have occupied my time. I have been speaking to a few people who might have attended the last few meetings with Pravin and Zoomer. From what I can figure out, the ANC is speaking to business but will not concede everything. The story goes that certain ridiculous Rob-designed policies aren't going. This makes sense, we all know that the ANC has fucked up the economy, the ANC knows that it is fucking up the economy and labour wants us to fuck up the economy even more. It's a negotiation, the ANC needs to save some face and business needs to create an environment conducive to bringing the economy back on track. Of course I want business to tell Pravin that Rob's new codes are going to kill whatever transformation the ANC envisaged. Perhaps they have but I would imagine it would be a low priority. If your boss is one of those who gets to talk to Pravin here is a little speech that they can memorise.
Dear Pravin
Re: #revisedbeeecodesmustfall
It is unlikely that there is going to be a violent confrontation, business people are not ones to march to Parliament and throw faeces to make their point. This revolt is unlikely to make the front page of any non-Gupta owned newspaper and will never make it onto ANN7. So we have to use whatever medium that we can (which right now is some white BEE consultant's blog). We appeal to you in the name of logic here, failing which you might just expect some form of legal action (not from the white BEE consultant, he tried it but the uptake wasn't that great). The very respected Minister of Trade and Industry, a Dr Rob H Davies, was persuaded by a number of people in the pre-firing Nene period that transformation was JUST not happening. To this end they recommended a number of very dramatic and expensive changes designed to "incentivise transformation" in the words of the Bolshevik Rob Davies. These dramatic and expensive changes are only applicable to those who own businesses who are not black as per definition. In summary this is what the revised codes look like
- Black owned businesses (from 51% to 100%) who turn over less than R50m are automatically level 2 or 1 contributors because they are black owned
- The scorecard itself uses negative marking for all those companies who lack the ownership and turn over between R10m
- The entry level to get onto the scorecard is now 40 points
- To get to those 40 points a company needs to dramatically re-orientate their business toward an empowerment agenda, and we know what happens when you put empowerment ahead of business sense, Eskom and SAA come to mind immediately
- The training requirement is so onerous that it is unlikely that any company could comply. If the minister (Pravin) wishes to get an idea of the costs then perhaps he could look here
- Rob has created a requirement known as "empowering supplier" that is so badly defined and ridiculous that it promotes vagueness.
- Those who benefit from the correct level of ownership can derive up to a 20 point advantage over their not-so-black competitors in state procurement
- It is very likely that the DTI pushed through these codes without the minister applying his mind (rather like his boss)
That is all very well but perhaps the minister (not Rob) would like to consider the following
- The onerous nature of these codes will have the effect of white-owned companies eventually running out of patience and they'll stop trying to compy
- Fronting will go through the roof because the larger corporates are going to insist on it
- The cost of state procurement will escalate substantially. This happening at the time where government maintains it needs to cut back on its expenditure,.
- A constitutional challenge will be launched against the codes. There are so many grounds for such a challenge but I think section 217 stands the greatest chance of success. If Hulme Scholes' challenge against the mining charter is successful then the floodgates will open.
- They threaten the very nature of empowerment. If the codes fail then you will never resuscitate this policy – the ANC is weak and it needs successes now. Transformation failures will no doubt be used as an electioneering tool but jobs will be lost and the opportunity to fix the country will have passed.
Pravin, you have more sense than Rob the Bolshevik, you can change things. I can assure that there is a genuine desire to transform the economy, Rob's codes are not the way to do it.
That's it. I'm in Cape Town next month for a few meetings, if anyone would like to meet for a cup of coffee or something like that I'd like to meet you.
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