Not that I have ever voted for the DA. It doesn't matter who I vote for, what does matter is why. I vote because I want to reduce the ANC's power. I once heard the Helen Zille would love to vote for the ANC, she feels that the ANC should have been a good home for her. But alas the crony incompetence of the ANC forced her into the opposition. I can relate.
I always post an anti-ANC post before an election. The news is full of how Zuma uses feudal methods to retain loyalty, part of this is to hire grossly incompetent people in positions (Hlaudi, Dudu, Muthambi and many others) of power. Most of his cabinet are suurstofdiewe, hopelessly out of their league and blissfully unaware of this fact. Alas Rob Davies, aka Rob the Red or Bolshie Bob is not one of those. He's not stupid he's just a rotten commie who has been given a free reign on the economy and is wantonly destroying it. He is obviously very inspired by Zuma's policy of hiring incompetents because his department is fraught with such people.
You imagine Bolshie taking on the job as a national coach of football. He hires people like me as assistant coaches, knowing that we know nothing about football (and I know NOTHING), the only guidance he provides is a game plan that the Uruguayans used in 1930 which no longer works. He then buggers off to the sidelines and waits for the impending disaster whilst spewing 1930s football rhetoric and statistics. "If it works then, then it will work now."
What brought this vitriol on was the exercise I undertook yesterday (a large part of yesterday I stress) in creating an assessment of a client's performance of the revised codes. The calculations are ridiculously complicated for me – someone who is rather well versed in these codes. Complexity aside – the sheer lunacy of these codes come to the fore. The table below shows the same client's skills development costs
Race Group
Modified EAP
Target spend per race group
Target spend per person
AM
45.89%
1,452,367.80
44,011.15
CM
6.54%
206,971.33
20,697.13
IM
2.14%
67,800.95
16,950.24
WM
0.00%
AF
38.56%
1,220,417.17
203,402.86
CF
5.64%
178,423.56
178,423.56
IF
1.24%
39,253.18
9,813.30
WF
0.00%
I've harped on about this a lot in the past. But I still cannot understand why the 6% of payroll is justifiable. How on earth is this company going to spend 203k on the training of African women? You could go to sesame bun and ask him what to do and he'll tell you to sponsor black women at university. This is not feasible. It's never going to be feasible. The sad thing about going to sesame bun and the DTI is that he doesn't know what he's doing either, and neither do his minions.
This is Bolshie social engineering at the stroke of a pen and then leaving the implementation of this to those companies that have to figure out what to do. He's enlisted his equally incompetent state-owned entities to blam this message home, they are equally clueless and just as protected as Bob is.
This is the product of the ANC, if you wish to perpetuate the status quo then be sure to vote Zuma. But the Zimbabwean example has shown that regimes like this will come undone. And when that happens…………… IT'S TOO FUCKING LATE!!!!
2. In or about January 2016 SAA issued a Request for Information (RFI) in the market, inviting interested parties to submit their bids. Fourteen (14) companies responded when the process closed in February 2016. Subsequently, a Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued to the same 14 companies. Only 7 companies responded to the RFP and 2 companies were subsequently disqualified as they failed to meet the critical criteria, being the existence of a valid and current Financial Services Board (FSB) issued licence to the service provider. The 5 companies that remained met all the requirements. SAA decided to award the tender to BnP Capital for scoring highest on both the Pricing and BEE requirements of the criteria. The appointment of BnP Capital as Transactional Advisor was ostensibly in accordance with prescribed procurement processes and the award was made on 20 March 2016.
The RFI responses would be interesting to look at. SAA is lying about the pricing - how could a company that cost more than R171m than the nearest competitor win on price. On top of that BnP had lost their FSB licence, I can't see when they lost it but this is material if their licence was suspended before the 20th of March 2016.
I suspect that SAA is playing further into OUTA's hands. Morons, fire the Dud alredy
[E]mployment opportunities are accessible to people only where they live. The objective of the EE Act is not to induce racial migrations to accommodate the statistics. Its objective is accessibility of employment opportunities and it achieves that objective only if it takes account where applicants for the posts are located. Statistics that serve as a tool for that purpose will be statistics that reflect the reality of the population, and the reality is that the races are not distributed uniformly throughout the country, which is not reflected in the Department’s Plan.
The Employment Equity Act has since been changed and it no longer requires an employer to take into account regional demographics when devising EEP targets – it merely allows it to do so if it wishes. It may be that this amendment is unconstitutional because it effectively encourages migration of people far away from their families and communities, thus containing echoes of the apartheid migrant labour system. But a future judgment will have to determine whether this is so.
So sayeth Pierre de Vos in another of his insightful posts. As those who are scholars of Rob's Folly also known as Bolshie Bob's Botched Borscht will know that our Stalinist deludinist has found it fit to include the economically active population (EAP) as a target for his racially representative nation. As we have come to expect from the brains trust at the iDioTIc, the document is big on ideology and short on the most basic clue as to how to implement it.
The ConCourt has come to our aid when it comes to regional and national EAP. You can use both. The ConCourt referred specifically to an EE plan. But I feel confident that we can extrapolate this conclusion into the meat of any BEE scorecard scenario. But you have to read this plan into the IMF's David Lipton's recent speech on the state of the South African economy.
But there is something else going on that has developed with the evolution of the economy. This involves issues that I know are very familiar to you: infrastructure bottlenecks; skills mismatches in the work force; regulations that stifle competition and entrepreneurship and keep that one-third of the labor force unemployed or too discouraged to seek work.
The end result is that a huge part of the labor force is left on the outside looking in, undereducated and with no opportunities for advancement. I’m told, for example, that there are township youth who not only cannot find work, but who grow up without knowing anyone in their circle of family and friends with a job either!
The formal economy is not absorbing them, nor are they able to strike out on their own. There is a crucial structural issue at play here: those included and successful in the advanced economy — large businesses, banks and unionized workers — maintain entry barriers against their potential competitors — small and medium-sized enterprises and the unemployed.
These paragraphs actually refer to the 79% of the EAP that the Prison's Department wants in its employ. Lipton is telling us that the government has in effect let these people down, both through their historical neglect and their ongoing burdensome policies. And once they have washed their hands of these people by pushing them out the school system the private sector is expected to absorb them and make up their educational shortfall by blowing humongous amounts of cash on skilling them, 6% of payroll to be precise.
We are being taken for fools, policies created by buffoons who are not required to understand how an economy or a spaza shop runs. This doesn't specifically mean that we can point fingers at Zoomer and his band of incompetents. We are part of the solution but government needs to make the first move - and that move should be axing Zoomer and his cabinet without a pension.
It was my father who told me that if you aren't going to say anything nice about anyone or anything then don't bother – but then he had no idea that the ANC government (which he never had any issue with) were going to be so useless. And my god how useless they have turned out to be. If you are in the only competent department in this bloated government (public sector) and you have been told by lobby groups like the BBC, BMF, Black Lepers' Association etc that you WILL make a plan to change the PPPFA to suit them, eventually you will capitulate. And this is exactly what Treasury has done with their new draft PPPFA regulations.
We need to travel back in time here. The black business council has long been pushing for dramatic changes to the PPPFA – the current (not draft) regulations really throw a spanner in the works for state capture (legitimate state capture – not the illegitimate stuff which makes up the majority of state procurement). Our brazenly Hlaudi-like jungle jim had even gone so far as to demand (always demands for jungle because he lacks the credibility everywhere for anyone to constructively engage with him) that the PPPFA be scrapped. Perhaps the BBC was emboldened by Zuma's statement in the fated 2015 state of the nation farce where set asides would be created for black businesses, perhaps they were inspired by Dud Miyeni-millions-to-be-had's set asides at the national disaster of the skies. Perhaps they forgot to pay attention to the fact that Treasury told Dud to stop behaving in this arbitrary way. Maybe they saw that if you put pressure on Treasury and ran to Daddy (23 odd children that we know about) you'd get the finance minister fired. Or maybe the Treasury just wanted to get this irritating mosquito out of their offices. Whatever the rationale – Treasury has published a half decent document (no sign of Bolshie Bob's work to be seen in it, which automatically makes it better).
A few observations
It's open to interpretation and changes. They've used general descriptions in many cases, things like referring to any EME/QSE as defined in a code of good practice issued under section 9(1) of the Act
The old HDSA definition in the first regulations is back – they don't refer to people who couldn't vote before 1994 but have included all women and disabled people in the designated group category
Functionality is now part of the evaluation criteria. In the past the PPPFA kicked in only once the functionality test had been conducted.
The terms "rural areas" and "township" are also included within the definitions
The 80/20 principle is now extended to contracts less than R100million (this is just for the BBC – they are going to make a clean sweep here)
Set-asides are included but not expressly – they are suggested. For example, paragraph 10 (1) says that pre-qualifying criteria MAY include things like (inter alia) a stipulated minimum BEE level.
If the contract is more than R30million then 30% MUST be subcontracted to a prescribed class of subcontractor.
Now what I really think
R100million as an 80/20 threshold.
I don't know – this is up 100% from the current regulations, which have set the threshold at R1million. This is a large amount of money. This figure is there to appease the lobby groups who will take firm advantage of this (I would too). What Pravin is telling us is that he is willing to pay up to R25million more on a contract.
BUT – Treasury is not as dumb as the ANC. There are implications here
Paragraph 6.4 of Statement 000 in the Revised Codes (36928 – if my brackets irritate you, you aren't alone) says that start-up enterprises must produce a QSE scorecard for contracts between R10m and R50m and a generic one for larger amounts for any contract contemplated under section 10 of the BEE Act. This effectively messes with compliance simplicity for contracts over R50m for start-ups.
Any contract over R30m must sub-contract. This might not be stipulated in the tender document, but the tender has to make it clear who they are subcontracting to (white owned EMEs and QSEs may also be subcontracted).
There is a functionality requirement which COULD provide a filtering mechanism for start-up chancers.
And the issues
Contracts less than R50m are open to abuse from start-up black-owned companies. No this is not racist – it's just that black-owned companies of between 51% and 100% ownership don't need to comply with elements, they just need an affidavit. State capture in R50million chunks – the Guptas must be laughing in the Dubai heat. Don't laugh too much my little pilferers – you could lose hydration in that heat and you won't be able to stand trial here with Zoomer.
The functionality criteria are not obligatory. A corrupt supply chain manager may just exclude this because they have already identified the winners in the tender
The inclusion of examples in the document
Paragraph 10 of the draft regulations list a few types of examples that will inevitably become the norm. The paragraph below is edited.
10(1) If an organ of state intends to apply pre-qualifying criteria in the evaluation of a tender, the criteria stated in the tender documents may include, but are not limited to
The tenderer having a stipulated minimum B-BBEE status level of contributor
The tenderer to sub-contract at a minimum of 30% of the value of the contract to one or more
EMEs or QSEs owned by black women
Black youth-owned EMEs or QSEs
Black owned EMEs or QSES
Etc
I would be surprised if the criteria that may be used are ever extended beyond these examples. This could render the definitions I discussed above as superfluous.
Set-asides
One morning an incompetent minister was on the radio telling us how her equally incompetent department were going to use set-asides. I found myself agreeing with her. If the state procurement machine (as per the BBC's allegation) is still not benefiting black business then fuck it, just use set-asides. It's probably time to do it. Treasury has not traditionally been in favour of set-asides, for good reason – they are patently unconstitutional. Section 217 of the constitution requires a procurement that is fair, competitive, cost-effective, transparent and equitable. Set-asides preclude a class of people (juristic and natural) from bidding for certain contracts. I think Treasury has been clever by not expressly stating that black-owned businesses may only bid but they are effectively precluding competitive bids from other suppliers by using the example above.
For example – let's say a bid for a contract less than R30m states that you have to be a level 2 or higher. The message here is that only black-owned QSEs with a shareholding of 51% or higher may bid. The supply chain manager will argue that any company can get to a level two by implementing the QSE scorecard at great expense and get to 95 points on the QSE scorecard. But then again, only those companies with 25% black ownership can do this. There are issues here – bill of rights issues, competitive issues, cost effectiveness issues. And most importantly litigation issues.
Points advantage to black-owned EMEs and QSEs
A perennial factor. A 100% black-owned EME will have an 8 point advantage over their white-owned competitors. Is this extreme advantage reasonable and fair? As a white speaking non-Jedi I would say no. Understand that for my QSE business to vaguely compete I have to conduct a wide variety of extraneous activities that my black competitors do not need to.
By the time you get to the 90/10 it all pretty much normalises. Alarm bells must be rung if a company that produces a QSE BEE certificate bids for a R100.1million contract.
AND IN CONCLUSION MY DEAR KLEINBOOI
This is a good document. As I was writing this blog post I realised that my misgivings had been partially addressed within the draft. However experience has shown us that the average supply chain manager is not clued up about the legal complexities of state procurement and so abuse can be expected. Functionality levels can be set in such a way that only one bidder could ever qualify and this is in spite of paragraph 4(2) that requires objectivity.
I'll be sending my comments to the required email address (I'll remove the profanities before I do).